GCSE summer 2020 thread 6 - Carry on Corona Cohort, Further adventures aboard the Corona Charabanc.

[FoolsAssassin]

The summer of discovidtent for the Corona Cohort trudging on towards results day.
Ofqual have done them a little video to explain their results:

Please feel free to join us to see what twists the next bit has in store for us all.

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@Northumberlandlass - I was the same - DD has worked her socks off since she’s been at high school and I trusted the results to reflect that, more or less. Then the hullabaloo over the IB followed by the Scottish results really worried me, and the media frenzy this past week or so has exacerbated my concerns. And I really need to stop looking at Twitter

@Janie74 I’m the same, I’m torturing myself.
DS is quite chilled! 🤣

Our school rankings did not follow the sets. It’s pretty usual for the top of set 2 to outperform the bottom of set one on results day and teacher predictions and rankings reflected that this year in our school. I can’t vouch for every other school but would imagine some overlap would be the norm.

Yes overlap at ours too. Remember sets are just a blunt tool for timetabling. Ability and performance will feed rankings

I heard the news about Scotland and just thought- that sounds like a political decision taken in the face of public anger that is now going to be a complete nightmare for someone else to sort out. It was always going to be a blunt instrument to adjust grades on a statistical model but it seemed like the best of a limited number of options. I just don’t know on a practical basis how they can possibly collate the personalised evidence to sort this out.

Unfortunately, I think the sets were also based on y6 SATs to some extent. When looking at swapping a set 1 and set 2 pupils, I expect the science teacher who is coincidentally the person who does all the predicted grade modelling pointed out that the set 1 pupils had better SATs and better computer modelled predicted grades so should be given priority, There was also the male/female balance issue also mentioned. It was really annoying at the time as set 2 had lots of people who only got 5/6 in the year 11 mocks, so set 2 were not being taught the very hardest grade 9 material. My DS had to teach himself out of the CGP grade 8/9 workbook and then one science teacher commented on how he knew topics that hadn't been taught yet (not positive comments - she was implying he had a tutor, which he did not, he taught himself so that he could get the grade 9s he wanted despite being stuck in set 2).

I think the Scottish government have done the right thing. Appeals should be possible and mass downgrading based on a statistical model that has as one of its assumptions that this year cannot be a bumper year should definitely be challenged.

I’ve just seen that Ofqual has published a new blog post. It’s aimed at A-Level students but also relevant for GCSEs.

ofqual.blog.gov.uk/2020/08/10/looking-ahead-to-a-level-results-2/

neutralintelligence mass downgrading was mainly as a result of mass overinflating

The reason that one of the assumptions is that this year can’t be a bumper year is because exam results in any given year are norm referenced to ensure that no year is a bumper year. If kids had sat exams this year the number of each grade available would have been limited by a statistical model that meant that, no matter how well kids did on the exams, there would have been approximately the same number of each grade as last year (with small adjustments for prior attainment of the national cohort). Before any kids has sat an exam, Ofqual (or SQA) already know roughly how many of each grade there will be. When the exam marks come in they set the boundaries to give results as close to the expected number of each grade as possible. It is 100% certain that the grades given out on results day will be, on average, better than they would have been if the kids actually sat the exams as they’ve allowed a larger increase than they otherwise would have done.

That's a really good blog from Ofqual.

I think there is a fundamental popular misconception that CAGs are students actual grades and students are potentially being denied justice if they're adjusted after submission. They're clearly not and that's why exam centres were under strict instructions to not reveal them to candidates or parents.

So how does they system adjust for an able year vs a less able year? Or does it just not....

The adjustment for the “ability” of a cohort is based on KS2 baseline data.

So they look at KS2 data and decide there will be more 7-9 for one year if the KS2 data says its an able year?

Yes. Those sort of adjustments are usually very small though (partly law of large numbers and partly because KS2 test results have a certain amount of norm-referencing at play too). You just would never see the sort of increase that was predicted.

We live in Wales, where SATS aren’t done, and she moved to an independent school in year 8 that follows the English pathway, so how will KS2 data work there?

I was surprised to see that there was a 20% increase in A's at Advanced Higher, which in UCAS terms are equivalent to A* at A level and half the number of fails compared to last year. I am sure that will not be happening in England. The Scottish results were very high for AHs, which implies that if a lot of people got lower grades than they should have, even more got higher grades than they should have.

The KS2 scores are used at cohort level (school and national) rather than student level. A student with no KS2 score would just not form part of the overall judgement about the “ability” of the cohort in the national picture or for the school. In schools where most or all of the students don’t have key stage 2 data I suppose we’ll have to wait and see how they account for that in their statistical model. Maybe those schools will be given slightly more leniency or have some sort of formula applied to account for it. I don’t think that’s in the public domain yet. If it is I’ve not seen it.

Thanks @MadameMinimes. Nice to know even if it doesn’t make a massive difference in real numbers.

I suppose we’d all be discussing likely grade boundaries if things were normal

@MadameMinimes the reason that is so tricky is that private schools do not do SATS (may be exceptions, but I believe it is not usual) and politically the system cannot favour private schools.

Monkey, that’s what I was getting at - DD’s current school doesn’t do SATS, and her primary school follows the Welsh education path, so no SATS there either.

I’ve got to the point that I can’t see any point in trying to predict what next week may bring - until then, it feels like we could either be living in a fool’s paradise or a fool’s hell.

Piccolo, I have said it before, but just be glad you are not waiting for A level results. The consequences of the wrong grades and any resulting delays really are worse for them.

Agree @Monkey2001 I feel for all (kids & parents) waiting for A-level results. I know I have the occasional flappy moment, but realise the impact of A-level results is much higher.

Some private schools do SATS but also I do not know of any (many?) that do not do MIDYIS or YELLIS testing whicb data is available also to feed into prior cohort data.

@SeasonFinale - DD is at an independent secondary school which has a large state primary intake at 11+. Will they use the SATs results for the girls where it is available and combine with data available from their own testing? I'm not sure what scheme they used but they definitely did test the pupils moving from the junior school.