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Original poster

Ofqual - you can’t appeal CAGS or use mocks

201 replies

noblegiraffe · 20/08/2020 15:50

Updated info just out from Ofqual because there has been obvious confusion after last weekend.

Students will not be able to appeal on the basis that they think their CAG was unfair, and they will not be able to appeal on the basis of a higher mock grade.

Appeals will be allowed from schools only for admin errors, such as data entry errors.

If there are concerns about bias or discrimination, they should be raised with the school in the first instance.

The autumn exam series will be available for anyone unhappy with their result.

schoolsweek.co.uk/results-2020-what-you-need-to-know-about-this-years-appeals-and-autumn-resits/

OP posts:
JustHereWithMyPopcorn · 24/08/2020 17:45

Yes, I agree it's difficult to put a value on it like that. My point being if you thought they had the capability do you, in this specific set of circumstances, say benefit of the doubt but lower rank. If they thought it was really unachievable then fair play, lower grade.

Anyway, its all hypothetical, what's done is done.

TheFallenMadonna · 24/08/2020 17:48

You follow the Ofqual guidance and give the grade you think they would have got. Capable of is not the same as likely to get, as any teacher can testify.

TheFallenMadonna · 24/08/2020 17:52

My DD got her GCSE grades on Thursday too, so I have two perspectives on CAGs.

clary · 24/08/2020 19:27

[quote FAQs]@clary even though they had a few weeks study leave and many students pulled a grade or so higher in final exams?[/quote]
I was a. teacher for secersl years, with a GCSE class just about every year, and I never remember a student surprising me by a higher grade than I thought they might get on their best day.

Mostly they got what I thought and occasionally there was a nightmare exam catastrophe that took them down, but never anyone I thought would fairly get a D, pulling off a C. Never mind someone pulling up a couple of grades. Nope.

SusanWalker · 24/08/2020 23:14

Well the head of English has not called me back. So I still don't know what's happened. We have a meeting at the college tomorrow to discuss what DS will do instead of a levels. I'm so pisses off they haven't got back to me today.

Fraser1234 · 24/08/2020 23:32

Yes I’m sure you are right but that’s the issue. Our children shouldn’t be judged and awarded grades based on previous years and other people’s performance. It shouldn’t matter if the whole school score 99% in the exam, they should be awarded the same grade For getting 99% not marked down because someone thinks that it is wrong that a school can do that well and therefore them all passing is wrong. They should be awarded on their own ability and merit yet the teachers and our government think that we should fail children rather than have honest grades and what they have actually achieved (or were trying to achieve).

OverTheRainbow88 · 25/08/2020 05:58

yet the teachers and our government think that we should fail children rather than have honest grades

This is just so untrue, it’s heartbreaking to give a child you have known for 5 year a fail and before this year a teacher has never had to give a fail grade to their own student before. I can tell you the decision wouldn’t be a lighthearted one and hours would have been spent trying to find evidence not to give them a fail.

In response to another reply... I predicted 3 a level students a C last year, they never got above a C in 2 years, I thought a C was ambitious, all 3 got As, in a school where As are unheard off...!

Fraser1234 · 25/08/2020 08:12

So you’ve proved the point. The children weren’t judged (by the system) correctly, they were judge on previous years attainment good or bad rather than what the child was capable of and what they had achieved over the time at the school. The system is wrong. You can score 70% in the exam one year and as there’s only a few who do, they get an A but the following year everyone scores over 80% so they all get a C how is that fair, just or right and why on earth are parents, teachers and children accepting of this?

TheFallenMadonna · 25/08/2020 08:27

The children were supposed to take exams. The exams were cancelled. Both they and teachers were working within that system only.
There is no "right" way of replacing a end of course exam with teacher assessment, with no time at all to implement a consistent assessment strategy.

NotAKaren · 25/08/2020 08:42

Can anyone explain how the ranking of students works? This seems to have had a big bearing on results.

TheFallenMadonna · 25/08/2020 08:50

Ranking by confidence that they would achieve that grade, using the evidence to hand.

OverTheRainbow88 · 25/08/2020 08:52

Can anyone explain how the ranking works...

So in my subject all 258 kids would sit the exams.

None would get 8-9s this year.

So about 14 kids would get a 7... maybe! So we had to rank those 14 kids from 1-14

So
7.1. Most likely
7.2
7.3
7.4
Etc

Then about 20 kids may have to a 6 so

  1. 1 most likely to get the 6
6.2 6.3 6.4 etc

About 50 kids may get the 5

5.1. Most likely
5.2
5.3
And so on!!

RedskyAtnight · 25/08/2020 08:53

I was a. teacher for secersl years, with a GCSE class just about every year, and I never remember a student surprising me by a higher grade than I thought they might get on their best day.

the trouble is that many students haven't been given their "best day" grade - they've been given a grade that is either an amalgam of work across two years, or a grade that has been internally moderated.

That's the unfairness with the system that we ended up with - due to there being no method of standardisation, some schools have graded more harshly than others.

TheFallenMadonna · 25/08/2020 08:54

The ranking had no bearing on final results, given the U turn, other than where the calculated (algorithm) grade was higher than the CAG. It was done for the standardisation, so that the "right" candidates had their grades changed if changes were required to maintain comparable outcomes.

NotAKaren · 25/08/2020 09:03

@OverTheRainbow88 @TheFallenMadonna Thank you for clarifying. It must be really tricky to decide between very similar ability and the ranking could make all the difference between the final grade and outcomes for the students. I suspect that this happened quite a lot where there are more students probably with the middle/ average ability groups.

0DimSumMum0 · 25/08/2020 09:08

What if the school had already moderated themselves? So if they only had five 7s' to award in French based on the last 3 years history, wouldn't they go with the highest ranking five students? Then what about the other students who also deserved 7's but couldn't have one because there were not left.

TheFallenMadonna · 25/08/2020 09:10

It was tricky and it could have made a difference if the standardisation had happened. But as candidates were awarded CAGs, it was not as important. What turned out to be most important was the in-school discussions on the borderlines between grades and deciding the actual CAG that was submitted.

clary · 25/08/2020 09:10

@RedskyAtnight

I was a. teacher for secersl years, with a GCSE class just about every year, and I never remember a student surprising me by a higher grade than I thought they might get on their best day.

the trouble is that many students haven't been given their "best day" grade - they've been given a grade that is either an amalgam of work across two years, or a grade that has been internally moderated.

That's the unfairness with the system that we ended up with - due to there being no method of standardisation, some schools have graded more harshly than others.

Yes I agree with that redsky, there was time to sort this so much better and set up some kind of standardisation.

The opportunity was lost. It's rubbish. But I believe teachers will have done their best. It's really unfortunate that there is no standard set across schools and counties. It's also rubbish that so many feel these final grades have been discredited by the endless moving of the goalposts. Those worst affected are the students, which is especially unfair.

I stand by what I said though - I never had a student get a C when I thought the best they could do was a D. So the pp who wanted teachers to say someone who was really likely to get a lower grade should get the higher grade is on the wrong track, I'm really sorry. Teachers do have an accurate idea of what a student can achieve. Exams (which are probably not a great way of assessing) tend to bring out the worst, not the best, in a lot of students. IME obviously.

OverTheRainbow88 · 25/08/2020 09:15

Yes the whole system was pretty flawed.

We didn’t look at how many got 7s last year and try to match that.

There was also a lot of disagreement within the department as say I felt like students H deserved to be 7.1 so the most likely to get a 7, but 3 other members of the department wanted their student to be 7.1 so then none of us had taught the other students so we then had to go through all their work and make a judgments... our HOD would then keep pushing their student to be 7.1 etc....! Was a horrible experience to say the least !!

0DimSumMum0 · 25/08/2020 09:17

@TheFallenMadonna Yes I bet those discussions were agonising. A friends daughter failed 4 of her exams. I'm sure that was also a very tough decision to make. I don't envy the job the teachers had.

TheFallenMadonna · 25/08/2020 09:27

There was no standardised way among giving CAGs because there couldn't be. These are qualifications where the only standardised assessment is the terminal exams. That's it. My DD's school wouldn't give out grades for mocks that were not full past papers, because really, you are making it up. I only do full paper mocks in my subject for that reason. Different schools, different subjects within schools, will have had different evidence and will have done things differently. Everyone expected standardisation, because it was clearly laid out that it would happen. "The algorithm" was expected, but I think the lack of a human eye being passed over the outcomes before they were released was where the complete lack of trust in the results came from. The real outliers were not identified and interrogated.

SusanWalker · 25/08/2020 10:18

So I have heard from the school. DS grades were based on the assessment sent from his tutoring company. The school have realised that this does not match the work that was sent in.

The reference was for SW02, ds was SW01. (Not actual tutee references). So it's straightforward admin error.

School are trying to contact the tutor company and the exam board. I'm hoping it will get sorted quickly.

Original poster
noblegiraffe · 25/08/2020 10:25

Good luck Susan, it does sound hopeful.

OP posts:
JustHereWithMyPopcorn · 25/08/2020 11:07

Good luck Susan! 🤞

NotAKaren · 25/08/2020 12:35

@OverTheRainbow88 Indeed, it sounds like a very stressful situation and I can imagine that different people could have exerted more clout depending on their status and experience within their department. DD had a new teacher for one of her subjects this year, so had 5/6 months in the school and with these students. I can't imagine her voice carried much weight among others more senior and longstanding.