Ofqual - you can’t appeal CAGS or use mocks

[noblegiraffe]

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/

Has anyone had any luck at all getting the grades their child deserved? I obtained some emails from my child's school and in summary, at least one grade was lowered at the behest of the headteacher. Have a look.

Hopefully someone has had some luck!

17 May 2020. Quotes from one English school’s internal emails, whilst working on setting CAGs.

Head of Subject, “all grades are based on the students results and what we genuinely felt they could achieve”, “they are a very hard working year group so we felt quite confident that these were the correct results for the students”

School Leadership, “I sent our results to the FFT database”, “As you will see Geography is predicting that on average all students will achieve a whole grade higher than FFT”, “he would like you to review your results again as we all feel the exam board is likely to bring the Geography grades down”, “we do feel that at the moment that these results are out of kilter”

Head of Subject, “a bit disappointed”, “but if we have to move so be it”

School Leadership, “I did say you felt you had the evidence”, “I would start by altering those at the bottom”

Head of Subject, “let me know if we have changed enough or if we need to change more”, “Currently is about 40 students with a reduced grade do you think that’s enough?”

School Leadership, “I’ll need to look but I’m sure if you’ve moved 40 before even looking at the classes then it will be fine.”

Several weeks later, 27 August 2020. Quote from an internal email regarding a parent’s question about an individual student’s CAGs.

Subject Teacher, “I think he was one of those I had to bring down due to overall grades being too high, he is one who would have got higher sadly.”

Wow! I’m so pleased you’ve been able to get your hands on evidence like this.
My daughter retook her exam so we now need to wait for the results before I take it further. Her mock was an 8 she was given a CAG of a 4! I’m hoping if she’s got a 6 or above this is enough to go to ofqual with a complaint regarding the grades and the biases the teacher had for those staying at the school!

Those are two really good points! Thank you! I hadn't considered they were only giving high enough grades for kids to stay on for their chosen A-Levels and yes, using the evidence of the real exam along with all the school-work they should have used to set CAGs, it's a perfect idea. My child is sitting two exams too right now. No support from the school, whatsoever.

Found this on Ofqual which I find very interesting:
“Our analyses show that, of the students that have a grade from the summer, just under 50% have improved their A level grade, around 30% have the same grade, and just over 20% received a lower grade. For AS, just under 40% of students have improved their grade, around a quarter have the same grade, and just over a third achieved a lower grade.”
If I read this correctly that means the teachers CAGs were 70% WRONG, for A levels and pretty much the same for AS levels, both giving higher or lower grades!!
I will be very interested to see what the GCSE grades are like when they analyse these.......

But it is from a very skewed sample

Thank you Fraser1234

What Fraser1234 provided is useful. It shows that CAGs were wrong 70% of the time. Yes, the statistical sample is small and that is difficult to provide meaningful analysis but if Ofqual said that those 20,000 students who took the test (they didn't retake it, they took it for the first time) did so because their CAGs were standardised by their school (see my own example below) then it helps to show how wrong the idea of standardising grades based on prior years is.

Just another thought, maybe Ofqual could stop using the phrase "Generosity" when referring to 2020 exams. 1/3rd of students had their teacher grades lowered by standardisation at the school level. (A few more bits on this below too.) Maybe, just maybe, the teacher grades are more reflective of the students' ability than the exams on one particular day. But that would put quite a few exams and data companies out of business.

My child's CAGs were changed by his school leadership because they wanted to fit the curve into 2019 results, even though the teachers objected. This was proven by a FOI and the resulting internal emails. (I look forward to that Ofqual report on Autumn exams.)

Per David Blow, Executive Head of South East Surrey Schools Education Trust and member of the Ofqual External Advisory Group; one-third of CAGs were set with the aim of ensuring that the distribution of grades follows a similar pattern to that in other years and two-thirds were set with the aim of awarding students a grade which fairly reflects the work that they have put in. Had the thirds been the other way around, there would be more coverage and help for those kids. committees.parliament.uk/writtenevidence/12462/html/

A skewed sample? A sample of children who had taken the exam for the first time, hadn’t had any learning for 6 months but 70% managed to get results completely different from those the teachers awarded. It may not be a big sample but I’m hopeful that when they do the same analysis on GCSEs it will show the same outcome. Which is teachers don’t know how children will perform on the day, therefore CAGs aren’t the best option for our children. This incorrect awarding has meant children took the wrong next step because of over inflated grades or couldn’t take their next step because of deflated grades. I don’t think this analysis is meaningless, quite the opposite.

This incorrect awarding has meant children took the wrong next step because of over inflated grades or couldn’t take their next step because of deflated grades.

Has it? In most cases a grade changed in either direction won't have affected people's next steps at all. In some cases doing something different to what was planned might actually be the "correct" thing.
It's only "wrong" if people are taking further study that is beyond their capabilities, and in most cases Y11/Y13 students would have had frank discussions with their teachers about sensible next steps.

I'd be interested to see if there are more changes/dropouts in those who were Y11/Y13 in 2020 compared to other years. Though, of course, this year is also disadvantaged by not having teaching from March, and living through a pandemic, so not directly comparable.

Also what is the "right" grade? Every year students get different grades to the ones they expected. This is both due to "bad days", extenuating circumstances, or equally because the questions fell nicely for them. Unless we are giving students Es who should have got As (or vice versa), I'd suggest teacher assessed grades were never meant to be perfect, just "good enough".

(IMO the real issue with last year's grades is that some schools did their own moderation and some schools were more aspirational than others, so the same student might have been awarded different CAGs going to School A than if they'd gone to School B).

I'm afraid it will affect their next steps.

Most competitive 6th Form colleges won't accept any grade under 6, even if it is not their chosen subject. Therefore, change in calibre school will be seen.

Many if not most schools use "Alps" scores to predict A level grades (which get passed along to universities for admission offer decisions). Guess what Alps uses to predict A level grades. Yep, GCSEs.

Also, many universities consider GCSE grades as well as A-Level grades upon admission.

It just remains a problem for a lot of kids.

It's extremely skewed- very very few have sat re-sits. They have had six whole months to study, often for just a single subject. What a surprise they've got a decent result.
We have a 6th form cohort of c.140 students. 4 students re-satbone subject each. They all improved their awarded grade by just one grade. All four have deferred university, and been at home with ample study opportunity since march.

It really doesn't mean schools got CAGs wrong.

That's not to say there haven't been mistakes made at an individual level, obviously.

It absolutely did! My daughters mock for English was an 8 (she was working at a level 6 consistently over the 5 years at secondary school) and she planned to take English at a level. Her teacher decided she “wouldn’t perform well on the day of the exam” and awarded her a 4!
She was unable to take English A level at any of the schools we had applied to due the grade being too low.
She had to completely change what she was taking because of this grade!

@Fraser1234

It absolutely did! My daughters mock for English was an 8 (she was working at a level 6 consistently over the 5 years at secondary school) and she planned to take English at a level. Her teacher decided she “wouldn’t perform well on the day of the exam” and awarded her a 4! She was unable to take English A level at any of the schools we had applied to due the grade being too low. She had to completely change what she was taking because of this grade!

Did you appeal? If she was consistently working at a level 6 for 5 years, this sounds like an admin mistake, and you would have had evidence to prove it.

Repeatedly tried to get an appointment with the headteacher who was “too busy” to see us. After numerous emails he decided he had time to see us at 4pm on the final day that we could appeal the results. There wasn’t any point as the deadline would have passed during our meeting and he made it clear he wasn’t going to appeal or offer us good reason for the result.

I know it may seem too late but those GCSEs will be a factor for some time and will remain on your child's record (losing importance as years go by, but not anytime soon). To get your child the grade she deserves, the process to follow now is to file a complaint against your school. The school will probably so, "No, we don't agree with you" but then you are clear to file your complaint with the exam boards. If they did standardised grades based on prior years, don't focus on that but focus on the facts of the matter. Her work indicated otherwise, the school is guilty of malpractice. Lots of parents have taken this route. It can't hurt to try.

Thank you. I’m waiting for the grade next week as she took the exam. I’ll have mud on my face if she only gets a 4! Fingers crossed she’s proved them wrong :-)

We are in the same boat. Waiting til Thursday too. I’m sure she did fantastic!

16th January 2021, The Guardian Article, finally coming to light to the country.

'Cruelly cast aside': A-level victims say summer debacle must never happen again

Thousands of 2020 students are still campaigning for justice after losing university offers and apprenticeships when their grades were wrongly reduced

www.theguardian.com/education/2021/jan/16/cruelly-cast-aside-a-level-victims-say-summer-debacle-must-never-happen-again

Just a heads up about the possibility your school will continue to record the old/wrong grade if your child took the exams in the Autumn. The new grade is supposed to completely replace the old one. The government said so. You can get an updated report from exam boards too.

With their solution, a whole lot could and probably will go wrong.

This from my school:

"Thank you again for sending over the mobile app screenshots to support our investigations into x's CAGs appearing on the Edulink account.

Having looked into this further, I can now provide you with an explanation as to why the grades are there. As x was awarded those grades last summer, we are unable to delete them in their entirety from our internal data system. The grade 'exists' and we have to keep it on our records as such. However, as x has since been awarded a new grade, only the new grade will be reported to employers, Universities etc. The new grade is the grade that will staff refer to in their setting of targets and analysis of x's progress.

All staff have been reminded again of x's new grade and have been asked to double check their data reportings are consistent with the new grade awarded."

2020 Students - Class Action Lawsuit Against DfEd & Ofqual.

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/families-to-sue-over-wrong-marks-given-by-teachers-g2qjjc8x7

I’ve just returned the GCSE certificates to the school and asked for them to be re issued at the correct grade.

I’m sure the school will get this wrong, like they did her grade, but will see what happens. I asked under GDPR regulations that the old grade is removed completely under the right to rectification as it could affect university places.

Good idea, GDPR. Thank you.

Fraser1234 and Dilworth1234 do come on and let us know how your children get on. FIngers and toes crossed for you both!

Dilworth1234 my children are yet to go to secondary ( I asked in another thread about how sats results can determine projections at secondary) but I just read some of your posts.

Good on you for challenging this. I am in awe of you really for doing all that digging!

This changing of someone's individual grades to fit a previous year or different cohort is appalling.

Fraser1234 Also, just to add that I really hope your daughter does fantastically and I really hope you prove the school wrong, shocking that the Head could not meet with you in a timely manner.

Sorry I think I misread the thread timings.. so Fraser did it all end up ok for your daughter in the end?

My daughter moved school and took the exam in November without any learning from either school. Her result was a 6 and she was only a few marks off a 7! I can only imagine what she might have achieved if the school had been supportive, but that’s quite a different grade from the 4 she was given and would have meant she could have studied English at A level. Totally changed the direction and courses she had to take.
It goes to show that teachers don’t always get it right and that the assessments these teachers did weren’t correct.
I hope the children this year get the results they deserve.
I sent the old certificate back to the school and under GDPR asked for the right to rectification of the result. I’ve done this so that when she applies for university they don’t see the 4 as this could adversely affect her applications! This is what the schools and education ministers don’t seem to understand, the massive impact on their further education. 😡