Teachers - do you know your students results?

[mummabear1967]

Hi

Any teachers on here - when predicting grades for your GCSE & a level students, how did you do it? Did you just look at all their mocks, classwork and homework and decide “John deserves an A and Charlotte deserves a D” ?

So when you predicted grades, is that what they’ll actually get, so do you know their results already? Or do you submit your predicted grades to exam boards and then they change them if necessary?

@Madhairday they don't know. No one knows.
He will get a grade. That grade will be the moderated CAG.
If he doesn't like it, his school can appeal on his behalf for his verified mock grade. We don't know what a "verified mock" is so don't ask. Don't ask the school or the board or Ofqual either because Gav invented it and didn't tell anyone. Your guess is as good as ours.
I know that's unhelpful, but it's where we are. Let's see what tomorrow brings

@Madhairday

I'm a bit confused by this government turnaround. Are they saying they are now more likely to use mock grades only? Because if so my DS is shafted. He did his mocks right back in September and none of them did very well due to not enough work over the summer. Since then he'd started to pull it out of the bag and get the 8s and 9s he was due to get.

Worried.

It is very unclear.

Until next week when the government have decided what a ‘valid’ mock is, nobody can say.

They could decide that a mock that’s a past paper which was widely available to students online isn’t valid, they could deem that it wasn’t done in exam conditions or the marking grade boundaries weren’t standardised.

Some schools didn’t do mocks at all-it’s not a level playing field.

I am wondering if there are any differences between boys and girls.
From what I understand, girls typically (not all) consistently work hard throughout the year, whereas boys are more likely to put all into the final exam.
I wonder whether this would be more likely to disadvantage boys.
Obviously, without the exam, no system is going to be fair.
Ultimately, as long as A level students get the results required to study their chosen subject at hopefully,the right university, then this is what really matters.
A lot of students may defer until the following year, on the basis that due to the pandemic, the universities are providing more on line content, and are imposing rules about socialising, so there are likely to be places available for those that want to go

I’m just so curious to know - but have you yourself given any students a higher grade than what you think they’d actually deserve because you get on well with them and then have you given any students a Lower grade because you don’t get on well with them?

No.
It would serve absolutely no purpose at all to do this.

One of my most difficult student’s submitted grade was an 8. Despite the fact that he was more often than not very rude & disrespectful towards other members of the class.
Despite this, he was a smart lad. The grade he was given reflects that.

It works the other way round too. One of the kindest, most hard working students I have ever taught was given a 3. I desperately wanted to push it to 4 but couldn’t.

You give the grade based on evidence alone.

Life isn’t fair.

[quote MrsHamlet]@itsgettingweird your job as a parent is to fight his corner. Mine is to find his potential and nurture it.
The handwriting thing is bollocks.[/quote]
Well yeah!

Ds has an ehcp, is autistic and has a generic condition that causes muscular weakness similar to MND.

His brain still works! He has a scribe for exams!

Sadly you just get the odd teacher who doesn't get it .

But luckily for that odd one there's hundreds more who care so so much and nurture what they know they have.

Ds went through hell at local academy and the move was a fight. But it was made it worth it by the teachers who believed in him, saw the potential within and helped him learn to manage the environment and be able to learn.

They saw past the kid who tried to put his head through a glass window, threw tables and chairs and his backpack, told teachers to F off and he wasn't staying in their lessons.

They saw the kid behind the (quite appealing I admit! Behaviour)

Ds hadn't been like this before but had had a knife pulled on him in previous school and went from passive withdrawn almost mute anxious autistic to petrified fight mode autistic.

He couldn't learn because he could barely relax in a classroom.

I think teachers are facing the most unnecessary and most disrespectful bashing right now and I think you all need to know that most parents recognise what you do, are grateful for what you do and know you do it because you genuinely do care.

And that whatever happens with results we know that you wouldn't have chosen this way either and will have done your absolute best for every student.

But it isn't like you train for pandemic situations and how to work through them!

It works the other way round too. One of the kindest, most hard working students I have ever taught was given a 3. I desperately wanted to push it to 4 but couldn’t.

You could be my ds English teacher 🤣 I feel sorry for that guy! He was desperate for my ds to pass and had the specialist asd teacher involved and liasing with his 1:1 and everything.

He still never achieved more than a 3 in an assessment by the March of lockdown.

Thank you, @itsgettingweird.
I hope he gets what he's capable of and that it lets him do the next thing he wants to do. In the end, GCSEs are really just there to facilitate next steps.

Were everyone’s roughly what was expected?

We’ve had some shocks!

@OverTheRainbow88

Were everyone’s roughly what was expected?

We’ve had some shocks!

Ds is gcse so we are waiting a week yet!

Good shocks I hope?

My DS is awaiting GCSE results. He will lose out sadly. He is extremely bright and would have pulled out the stops for the exams, but he is also lazy and only started studying in Feb a bit- would probably have got some 9’s. His school is very poor achieving (currently rated ‘inadequate’) historically , but this year there are a few very bright kids for once, they would have had a super year. So on paper it would look like teachers are being too generous. On ranking he will probably be around 3-5 in the class ? Not sure - definitely not 1 as that is one specific child who is the star pupil. Given that historically the school only got one 9 per subject, he is likely to get 8’s, maybe 7’s. He’ll do fine and go onto college , but still disappointing for him. He would have much preferred taking the exams.

DS is terrified one of his teachers will have failed him because he never submitted a past paper for his teacher to use as a predicted grade

If he'd never submitted anything that could used, then that is a real possibility. If it's just one paper that's missing, it's unlikely.

@MrsHamlet

If he'd never submitted anything that could used, then that is a real possibility. If it's just one paper that's missing, it's unlikely.

It’s because they never did any mocks or tests for that particular module. But he has completed assignments in other units and modules

Then they'll have used those to inform the grade they gave as the CAG.

@MrsHamlet

Then they'll have used those to inform the grade they gave as the CAG.

We are hoping so. I do think it’d be a bit harsh to give him a U just because he didn’t submit half of a past paper during lockdown

I have only just seen this thread so apologies for the late info.

With BTEC we had to submit grades for completed coursework units that had been completed but not externally moderated as well as our 'estimate' for coursework units due to be completed between March 20th - July 31st; there was no differentiation on entering which were completed or estimated but we could have been asked for proof if needed.

The externally assessed units we were not allowed to give an estimated grade for (Pearson calculated these through data analysis of centre past performance).

We were also asked to rank students for each qualification on what we believed to be their final grade for both year 12 and 13 as 1 group

There are a lot of very sweary, angry BTEC teachers up and down the country today as a lot of the results make no sense at all especially for the external units therefore I can imagine a lot of appeals for both year groups

Mumma I'm sure I read somewhere that they weren't to rely on anything since 20th March and everything should be based on what students had done up until then.

This was to stop unfair advantage to pupils who had laptops and well educated parents at home who could help them.

Also any paper done at home and not under exams conditions wasn't a true reflection.

When do the teachers find out their pupils results?
Is it on the same day?

Yes. Usually from about 5am if you have access to the relevant portal. I saw mine at 7 today when I woke up.

@Fiddlersgreen

When do the teachers find out their pupils results? Is it on the same day?

Yes, SLT, Exam Officers and Quality Nominees (those in charge of BTEC) had access yesterday but under strict instructions to not forward to anyone until 8am this morning

@cricketballs3 @itsgettingweird

Thank you both so much for your responses - I have showed them to my DS, hope you don’t mind!

Yes, DS’ college closed on 20 March. Online teaching started the Monday after that.

During the online classes, his class were just told to continue on with assignment work and that was it really.

In May, they were told that any assignments with a due date after 20 March would not be marked or counted - so DS’ assignments were issued in February, by May most people I’m sure would have had them completed and submitted just to be told that they didn’t mean any thing and that they’d be graded using past attainment.

The unit he is talking about is cyber security, there was an external exam, it was cancelled, teacher asked them all to complete part of a past paper that she would mark and use for their predicted grade which was after 20 March. DS did not complete this.

But yes exactly what you both have said is what he said to me

@22:35mummabear1967 what result has he been awarded for that unit and overall? As I previously said as teachers we had no input into external unit grades these were awarded by some magical thinking by Pearson! Centres are being sent the data that was used to come up with these grades but from what I'm hearing about 90% of centres are appealing as the grades given have no logical bearing:
do not agree with coursework grades, previous external grades, rankings - there is a lot of swearing on teacher groups!

[quote cricketballs3]**@22:35mummabear1967 what result has he been awarded for that unit and overall? As I previously said as teachers we had no input into external unit grades these were awarded by some magical thinking by Pearson! Centres are being sent the data that was used to come up with these grades but from what I'm hearing about 90% of centres are appealing as the grades given have no logical bearing:
do not agree with coursework grades, previous external grades, rankings - there is a lot of swearing on teacher groups![/quote]
He hasn’t received his grades yet. His college said they couldn’t find his results on their computer system and when he goes to view his results on the results application on his computer account it is just blank! Not sure whats going on here

@cricketballs3 think he’s also pretty worried because he didn’t try hard, left things to the last minute and only got low passes in his first term assignments

[quote mummabear1967]@cricketballs3 think he’s also pretty worried because he didn’t try hard, left things to the last minute and only got low passes in his first term assignments[/quote]
Unfortunately his initial low passes will have a huge bearing on final grade even without this situation