GCSE and A level Government/Ofqual 'Sweetner'

[HappySonHappyMum]

Does anyone else feel that the government/Ofqual have released appeal info and results pattern information in advance of the actual results to try and offset the fury that thousands of teenagers and parents are likely to feel on results days when they realise their kids have been shortchanged? I felt really angry for the Scottish kids when I saw how the data supplied to the SQA had been used. I am feeling even more worried now than I did before. This whole year group are going to lose out and there's nothing these kids can do about it .

Is it?? That's bad!

Schools will pay for the FSM ones , but possibly only if that have identified them themselves.

I think/presume we are all luck on here as the so called 'sharp elbowed middle classes' but there ahs long been massive disadvantage built into the systems and this year has , I think , highlighted it properly for the first time.

Thing is students will be disappointed if grades do not reflect their achievements. Nearly every school will have done mocks by lockdown and ds school had done more mocks in core subjects the last week.

His mock results in some subjects were 2-3 grades above his predicted.

He realises he may not get more than mocks and the mock he got a 9 in probably would be an 8 - and dependent on questions on actual exam day this was also likely.

But if a student gets all 6/7's in a mock and gets 5's they'll be disappointed because it's based on factors like school, previous achievement and postcode. Not on actual reflection of ability.

If a student got 4's in mocks and doesn't pass it affects their further. It doesn't matter. The difference between these 2 grades has consequences.

And if it's true that they have to pay for the resits in November then only those who can actually afford it will get the chance. The gap widens even more.

I know schools as a whole institution can appeal the results. But even if that harkens you have pupils off starting higher and further education based on what they get this is next week and not what an enquiry may or may not decide in weeks or months time.

They’re basically saying “over 3 years your school, has averaged 1 A and 3As in French, so the top kid in your ranking gets an A, the next 3 get As”. Even if this year the teachers thought they’d 2 kids worthy of an A and the rest were B’s.*

It isn't that simple. If this year's cohort performed better at SATS than previous years it will be taken into account, so may justify more pupils getting A. Similarly, if your school's results have been improving year on year that may also justify more As.

Pupil from disadvantaged background. That's widening the gap in education.

The link between parental income and educational outcomes is much weaker in England than in Scotland. If you are from a disadvantaged background in Scotland you are very likely to attend a school that has consistently underperformed. Even in a normal year that damages your chances. This was made worse in Scotland by the fact that, if predicted grades had been used, the pass rate at Higher for disadvantaged pupils would have gone up from 65% to 85% in one year, a huge increase and a much bigger improvement than the predicted grades for other pupils. Whilst it is possible that was correct, it is unlikely, hence the stories about disadvantaged pupils losing out in Scotland. Even then, the gap between the poorest and richest pupils actually narrowed, although you can be forgiven for missing that fact as it has hardly been mentioned in the press.

Disadvantaged pupils in England are much less likely than their Scottish counterparts to attend a consistently underperforming school. It is therefore less likely they will be affected in the same way, but no-one can say for sure until the results come out on Thursday.

So is it the SATS results from across England when the majority of the students were in Y6 for this cohort which is the benchmark? Or is it feeder schools/individual SATS for students that are considered?

If the latter, how does this affect students who didn't do them (primary school abroad / independent primary school / absent on the day of the tests etc..)? And does the education system really believe that a child's performance at 10/11 years of age is an accurate predictor of achievement at 16/17/18?? Does hard work, maturity, improved (or reduced) circumstances, quality of teaching, personal motivation and work ethic have no impact??!! If so, why invest in improvement programmes for schools at all?

No exam system is perfect, but it is a real shame statistical modelling has won out over teacher assessed grades: if there was a huge anomaly between the results of students this year to previous at any particular schools, surely then the evidence collected by staff at that school could have been moderated by those who would normally have marked exams to the exam-board standards to check the accuracy of the predictions fro that specific school - the CAGs were submitted in May! (but as CAGs took into account other work than a 'final exam', this doesn't fit the government narrative that to be properly 'rigorous', the only work that reflects student achievement is that presented in a few hours of examination condition work after two years of study...grrrrr!)

I hope it is true that the educational disadvantage is less in England than Scotland - lowering a quarter of their grades seemed very harsh!

Guess we will discover more on Thursday...

My ds attended an out of catchment school on an ehcp. State MS but does get some of the best results in the area.

Far better than our local academy which is alway below in progress 8 and better than our catchment MS although that has done better.

He attended catchment juniors and so his SATS results are very much inline with local secondary's and therefore predicted grades.

He smashed those in his mocks.

He may be advantaged in that his mock results will end up standing as final GCSEs because the schools overall results are higher iyswim?

However if he'd attended the local academy where he started in year 7 he would a) likely have nit done as well as school weren't as good and b) not got the same chance if his mocks counting because on an algorithm it wouldn't be expected.

His school often get 8/9/10 students getting a 9 in subjects across a year group.

The academy will only get the odd 1 or maybe 2 and not in every subject.

And the reason I think the system disadvantages those from low social economic backgrounds more is that historically the academy has only had 50% pass rate maths and English above 5. I think slightly higher for subjects separately and maybe 60% ish for above 4.

So if this year the students have had better teaching (new head) or they are a good cohort and have worked hard if they out forward even the NA for a 4 pass then some of those will get 3's.

And this is a school where engaging children and parents 8n education is tough. And when those families can't afford a £50 resit you risk disenfranchising kids who have been buying into the system and doing do well and increasing their opportunities for years.

Well that's changed the goal posts with the all the Scottish exam results being upgraded to expected grades! That should have some effect on the English results don't you think?!

Or is it feeder schools/individual SATS for students that are considered?

It is the SATS for the students in this cohort at this school.

If the latter, how does this affect students who didn't do them

They are looking at the cohort as a whole, not individual students. The question is whether this cohort performed better or worse than previous cohorts.

And does the education system really believe that a child's performance at 10/11 years of age is an accurate predictor of achievement at 16/17/18?

It is a good predictor but it is not perfect. But they aren't using an individual pupil's SATS to predict their grades. They are using the SATS results of the entire cohort to predict whether this particular cohort would be expected to outperform previous cohorts at this school. That then allows them to decide whether it looks like predicted grades are optimistic, pessimistic or about right. Even if the cohort as a whole would not be expected to outperform previous years, an individual student may, through hard work, get ranked higher in the school's prediction resulting in a higher grade.

if there was a huge anomaly between the results of students this year to previous at any particular schools, surely then the evidence collected by staff at that school could have been moderated by those who would normally have marked exams to the exam-board standards to check the accuracy of the predictions fro that specific school

Given the huge variability in the evidence collected, it would have been extremely difficult to moderate predicted grades in this way. I'm not sure it would have been possible.

Well that's changed the goal posts with the all the Scottish exam results being upgraded to expected grades! That should have some effect on the English results don't you think?!

My personal view is that the Scottish grades for this year no longer have any credibility. The jump in the pass rate is too much to be believable.

Whether or not the Scottish grades have credibility is moot. The result of this upgrade means that Scottish students with inflated grades will get preferential treatment in University entry requirements across the UK. English and Welsh students will be at a disadvantage and that can't be allowed to stand surely.

Won't the universities just need to change their equivalence table to reflect that (for example) 17% of Scots got the top grade but only 5% of the English? They already have to work out equivalences for e.g. IB and foreign quals.

@Phineyj

Won't the universities just need to change their equivalence table to reflect that (for example) 17% of Scots got the top grade but only 5% of the English? They already have to work out equivalences for e.g. IB and foreign quals.

No. Offers have already been made and they're contractual - so you have to accept them even though you know that the grades may well be inflated.

Fortunately there isn't that much movement of Scottish students studying in rUK so the effect on non-Scottish unis won't be too huge.

The government has now announced that A-level students in England will get at least whatever grade they achieved in their mock exams. I agree with the head teachers' union ACSL that this is a bad move. Different schools use different exams and mark to different standards. To give an anecdotal example, one of my younger son's teachers has been quite open about the fact that she gives deliberately low marks for mock exams as she thinks it encourages pupils to work harder for the real thing. Putting aside the question of whether she is right, her pupils are now disadvantaged compared to the pupils who have a teacher that gives generous marks in mocks.

We already know that predicted grades in England are too high, with 38% of students predicted an A or A* against a previous record of 27%. What will happen if no student can get a lower grade than their mocks? I don't know but I now think that none of the grades awarded this year will have any credibility, which is a real shame for those students who genuinely would have got high grades.

English and Welsh students will be at a disadvantage and that can't be allowed to stand surely.

It is expected there will be a huge fall in overseas students, so there shouldn't be any shortage of places. But yes, this does create a problem in that the criteria and pass rates depend on where in the UK the student lives.

They’re saying it for gcse too. This is a clusterfuck of munumental proportions in the making. There is going to be litigation.

Monumental - am feeling overwhelmed, clearly

So it's confirmed whatever you got on mocks is the lowest grade you will get for that subject?

If that's true I don't know how much it'll affect harsh marking? My sons school just use the previous years appear and the mark scheme so his were accurate but surely if it's at least those who choose not to give accurate results can predict students higher and can also if they recorded the score prove what the actual grade was anyway?

Are they really going to be re-working all grades in time for results day?

Or will thousands of families have to go through adjustments, before final grades confirmed?

What a shambles

They aren’t re-marking anything. If a pupil gets a grade that’s lower than their predicted grade they can appeal to get their mock exam grade. They aren’t automatically changing the scores as some pupils will have got a lower mark in mocks than predicted grades. For example my son was predicted a 9 in English and got a 9 in his first mock, then got another teacher and he got a 5 in his last mock. Apparently the whole class all got marks a good few grades lower than predictions. They all said he’s a harsh marker. Perhaps he was trying to scare the kids into doing better for the real thing. So that raises the question too of when schools have done more than one set of mocks. DS’s school does 3 altogether and they were just a couple of weeks off sitting there final ones when Covid hit.

I feel so sorry for this years cohort of A level and GCSE students. My son will be fine, he got 6 9’s I think in his mocks, plus a few 8’s and then that random 5. He wants a 7 though in English as he’s hoping to apply for Oxbridge. He will resist if he scores lower than 7. I’m hopeful he will get at least a 7 though for English, and I guess he already knows now that he’s got his 9’s as he can appeal for his mock score. I don’t think he would be low down anyway on the list of students getting a 9. What upsets me is that 2020 GCSE and A level results will forever be judged and pupils who have worked so hard will always have people saying they got handed their grades on a plate. When we all know this isn’t true for most, my son spent every single hour working for those 9’s he will probably get. He worked so hard and was devastated he didn’t get a chance to showcase that. Of course he will be happy with his grades but it won’t be the same will it. But I don’t know what else the exam board could have done this year

DS waiting for results on Thursday.

This whole thing is a massive predictable shambles. There was never any way you could uphold a system reliant on an examination...Without an examination.

I really wish the unis had reverted to interviews in the absence of the exams. Zoom criteria based interviews could have been completed. Much fairer.

DS is at an independent, and I think probably has an unfair advantage btw. I don’t agree with this at all. I really don’t.

From a Government that failed to deliver a tracing app, failed on PPE, failed on track and trace is anyone surprised that this now is a monumental shitshow as well!

Ds is 1 subject did 3 mocks for each subject with a*a and D - which of those to use! His college sets mocks frequently.

So can you appeal each grade separately or do you appeal all grades as a whole.

For example my ds English mocks were 2 and 3. He did get some 3's in subsequent 'mocks' and tests but we know a 4 was always going to be hit and miss. (He's autistic so has language issues)

He got a 9 in his science mock which was way higher than predicted based on KS2 says projections. But very realistic for ds ability to memorise facts!

The rest was 6's and an 8 (maths).

So if he got 4 for English and say 7 for science I would say accept it.

But if he wanted to appeal as he got a 9 in science does that mean they would put all his grades at his mock results and therefore he'd lose his pass in English? Because obviously that has a greater impact than the science grade does?

It'll be per subject.

What a complete and utterly ridiculous disaster. I can't honestly believe they have rushed to alleviate the backlash before its even happened. If they can f*ck this up so monumentally after consultation - and take 5 months to acknowledge it then God help the 2021 cohort. Am honestly appalled - no words.

I'm not surprised.

There's been a whole failure and lack of planning with regards schools since they shut.

The whole thing could have and should have been handled better. And perhaps if they had the confidence from general public they wouldn't have to get the hose pipes out before the fires has even started.

To clarify (I hope!):

• Schools provided to Ofqual (i) ranking within subject and (ii) predicted grades. We always knew the ranking was key because grades would be subject to moderation.
• Teachers everywhere tended to over-predict grades. This is natural - we are optimistic and want the best for our students.
• Some schools (like mine) looked at the grades we had predicted (much better than previous years’ results!) and realised (a) sadly, they were just not realistic and (b) they’d never get through Ofqual’s moderation process. So we revised them downwards.
• Other schools submitted their higher grades.
• Overall schools reported a 12% improvement in grades this year, which is unheard of.
• Ofqual’s algorithm did what it was always intended to do, and reduced the “inflated” grades based on data it holds about schools’ and pupils’ past performance. (For example, it would recognise if a school had an exceptionally high-performing A level cohort from its earlier GCSE results.)
• It turned out that the schools predicting the biggest increases tended to be schools with lower prior results. The reasons for this have not really been explored.
• The media spun this as sinister algorithms “targeting” disadvantaged children in a “postcode lottery”.
• It is true that an exceptional student in a school with historically lower results might lose out. That’s also true for a school which has genuinely improved significantly in the last year.
• That’s why in England there will now be an appeal process.
• Simply abandoning Ofqual’s moderation would disadvantage children in schools like mine that reined in our predictions before submitting them.

What would have been the actual result of just accepting teachers' predicted grades?

Would it have meant courses were over-subscribed? Just wondering as there are loads more places this year.

It seems to be SQAs/Ofqual's shit algorithms which are at fault here. Having grades predicted by where you come from is one of the most disgusting things I've ever heard in my life.

I really wish the unis had reverted to interviews in the absence of the exams. Zoom criteria based interviews could have been completed. Much fairer.

Most offers had already been made though. Besides, 250,000 kids applying to 5 universities each - that's 2.5 million zoom calls. Even with a super fast turnaround that's 3 an hour. 833,000 hours makes 3000 person hours per uni.