Predicted grades - should we move away from aspirational, and move towards realistic

[Aragog]

I get the impression every year that the aspirational UCAS (and to a lesser extend gcse) grades cause issues for pupils, and lead to far more disappointment than the actual grades awarded do.

This year has really highlighted that.

To a 16-18y a predicted grade is just that - they believe them to be the grade they'll get. The fact that in most cases they are 'aspirational' totally bypasses most of these young people in my experience. A hugely,high number of young people achieve lower grades than their UCAS predictions.

I believe they can do more harm than good, and ultimately leads to a feeling of disappointment and failure in results day.

Should we be looking at giving students either:

(a) realistic predictions - ones they are 'most likely' to achieve based on their performance in year 12 (or 10 if gcse) and updated after mocks/coursework during the year if need be.

Or

(B) both realistic and aspirational grades - at A level this might help with selecting their firm choice (usually aspirational) and their insurance (usually realistic)

At the very least we need to do these young people a favour and explain much more clearly that the grades given are aspirational and they only have a chance of achieving them IF they pull out all the stops on the day.

On MN every year, as well as in real life, we see teens and parents alike commenting that the child didn't achieve their predicted grades, and how the child feels like they've 'failed' even if their actual grades are good ones,

Is it time for a change of approach?

@Witchend the crucial difference would be that if university typical offers actually reflected the grades they accept on results day, then schools that overinflated wouldn’t have any advantage. Their students would have offers but wouldn’t actually get in if they didn’t meet the offers. It would actually be in the interests of the school and the student for predictions to be accurate, as students who had unrealistic offers would end up in clearing anyway. The way it works at the moment means that when schools over-predict, their students get offers and secure places. If they are realistic, their students get rejected from places that their grades will be good enough for come results day and then have to go through the stress of clearing/adjustment to get in, or settle for lower rank universities that offered based on BBC and are now accepting people on CDD. Schools are not what is causing this issue.

@tryingmybest13 Making universities into comprehensives where all 18yr olds are just ‘distributed’ across universities regardless of grades etc sounds like an apocalypse waiting to happen. Who’s the brainchild of that idea I wonder?

@Shimy -there are are a lot of kites flying right now (think that was Tim Blackman) - plus the Augar Review: all on hold right now. But there needs to be some honesty about how HE is broken.

I keep seeing it crop up every so often. Why are we against selective education at aged 11 but support it at aged 16 and aged 18.

Or we could just change the system so people apply for university based on the actual grades they have rather than continuing this stressful, time-wasting nonsense.

@noblegiraffe To be fair, age 11 is too soon to decide a person’s academic fate. A lot of kids change in between ages 11-16, many who seemed mediocre go on to really shine academically equally some who seemed like high fliers at 11yrs, can somewhat plateau. I also believe every child deserves a chance to prove themself but by ages 16-18 you are almost an adult. You’ve spent more yrs in education and have a more consistent track record. Students also know there own minds better. Some may have decided aged 16, that higher education is not for them, personally.

Also if selection is removed, how will students be distributed across degree courses? Will 18yrs olds just be asked, what do you fancy?( I’m not trying to be funny, I’m asking genuinely). Are there any countries that use this method for entry to higher education where it’s worked?

Oh I’m not defending the argument, Shimy, just saying it does keep coming up.

The obvious point is that education is compulsory to 16 and provides a broad curriculum. Post-16 is a much narrower path, and university even narrower still. Centres need to be able to offer focused provision.

It’s very tricky.

With five choices on the UCAS form, ideally the student should put down a range of universities, eg two top, two middle, one super safe.

My DD put down Dundee as her super safe for Computer Science. Their typical offer was something like BCC, but they offered BBB, presumably because her school put AAB on her UCAS form.

@CraftyGin it’s a case which came first - egg or chicken?

In the old days (in MY day with my UCCA form), all the universities could see all the applications. It put into context why an AAB student was applying for a BCC place. They were being sensible and pragmatic.

To reiterate a point made above, UCAS predictions are absolutely not the same as teacher predictions/CAGS. It really frustrates me that the debate in the press has failed to realise this or take it into account. Yes, UCAS predictions are very inaccurate for all the reasons given by other posters above; the CAGS my school provided, however, were as realistic as we could possibly make them (obviously we can’t account for the kids who do no revision/mess up on the day of the exam or, conversely, work their arses off and overachieve in the exam). I feel sorry for my pupils who are now being told they don’t deserve their grades as their teachers’ predictions were inflated and they ‘would have’ got lower grades had they sat the exams, because in the vast majority of cases, that’s not true.

@itssquidstella Thank you for that re CAGs. Although my DS has just done GCSEs, he was pretty much spot on with his own estimates pre-release of CAG grades. As you say, things can happen in exams, but it looked fair and square to us!

@noblegiraffe

Oh I’m not defending the argument, Shimy, just saying it does keep coming up.

The obvious point is that education is compulsory to 16 and provides a broad curriculum. Post-16 is a much narrower path, and university even narrower still. Centres need to be able to offer focused provision.

Ah! I see now. I read it ask you asking the question.

@noblegiraffe

I keep seeing it crop up every so often. Why are we against selective education at aged 11 but support it at aged 16 and aged 18.

I think the problem is firstly it's very early to make such a big break which effectively decides the next 5 years at least.

I know in theory a child could move across, but I wonder how often it actually happens. My df failed his 11+. He's clearly extremely bright but was from a very deprived and, at that time, disrupted, home. He was offered to move across to the grammar at year 9, year 10 and year 12 and refused each time because he didn't want to move school. He ended up doing his A-levels at the secondary modern, the only student to do it. He got a higher grade in maths than his teacher, who did it at the same time, had to do Chemistry at an evening class as no teacher was able to do A-level, and all the time was working 3 jobs (paper boy in morning, bar staff 4x evenings and farm worker at weekends) to pay for books and transport (motorbike) because they school didn't have available books that were needed, and there wasn't any public transport from the village for the evening classes.
He now admits he should have moved across when he was offered a place, but for a 13yo boy to move away from friends into a different school is a difficult decision.

I think the other issue people have with the 11+ is it's so heavily tutored for in some areas. Which means it starts coming down to money at the middle end of the scale at any rate.

We don't have the 11+ in our area, but I don't think I'm totally against it. I'm not sure it's always an advantage, I suspect there are dc who struggle for 5 years to keep up to standard, and feel heavily pressured. And there will be dc who would benefit greatly from it who get in and it changes their lives.

Universities are actively incentivising schools to over predict. It really winds me up when they then complain about how inaccurate we are. If their typical offer had to be in line with what they actually take on results day then schools wouldn’t need to over predict and play this absurd game.
Whatever they may tell their parents, our students fully understand that their UCAS prediction is not a “real” predicted grade. They are told this very clearly and get reports home with true professional predictions on a regular basis that are lower than their UCAS grades. I’d really rather not inflate the grades but if you don’t play the game your students lose out.

Completely agree. During modular a-levels they went up and up (and with the cap coming off for triple A students). A-levels have been harder for the last 3 years but they are not adjusting the required grades (some access/WP adjustments but not across the board). So every results day starts off with adjusting the requirements to get offer holders in and then to fill places in clearing, again with lower requirements. And the same thing happened this year before the CAG was used.

@noblegiraffe

The whole system is broken isn’t it? No wonder all the calls to move to a post-results application system.

It’s utter madness that they don’t have results prior to applying. Other countries manage it.

I think aspirational (in a great day) and realistic (absolutely working at) may be a good idea. It’d also be useful to know which universities have grades set too high.

Universities could be required to state if a course has been in Clearing for a period of 3 years. So they must state yes or no for each of 3 (or even 4) years. That gives everyone and idea of whether it’s truly popular or not. Also publish lowest grades that were accepted into the course each year together with the highest. This would be valuable for potential students and decision making. Universities are businesses though so their PR goes into overdrive to recruit the very best students. Except, of course, there are not enough to go round.

There needs to be a readjustment of grades required on many courses at many universities and the facts surrounding admission should be made available to students as I have described above. By law. The government decrees what’s in a school prospectus and it needs to tighten up on selling of courses by universities.

Knowing whether a course went into clearing wouldn’t tell you very much. Most courses do now. Some go into clearing with vastly reduced grades whilst others go into clearing at grades that are the same as or very close to the usual offer. What people need to know is the grades that the students they let in actually got in their best 3 subjects. Publishing the lowest grades taken for each course would be course or even the grades of the student on the 9th decile (to account for outliers). Even the median would be a sensible comparison point.
Even simpler still would be to just move applications to be post-results.

I wish we could just bite the bullet and move to post-results qualifications.

But we won't !

I wish we could just bite the bullet and move to post-results qualifications.

UCAS have done a couple of scoping exercises in recent years to be fair.

Not sure what the resistance is - could be the selective subjects worried about interview schedules etc and also we’d have to get results out earlier - which has implications for marking (we use teachers to mark who do it as the term quietens in summer if they are still teaching). But it’s not insurmountable and we have moved to such a flurry of clearing and adjustment activity in recent years, with unis training up loads of volunteers etc (and after they’ve done a recruitment cycle anyway) that really having a shorter period in which to accept offers might not be any different!

@Gwynfluff

I wish we could just bite the bullet and move to post-results qualifications.

UCAS have done a couple of scoping exercises in recent years to be fair.

Not sure what the resistance is - could be the selective subjects worried about interview schedules etc and also we’d have to get results out earlier - which has implications for marking (we use teachers to mark who do it as the term quietens in summer if they are still teaching). But it’s not insurmountable and we have moved to such a flurry of clearing and adjustment activity in recent years, with unis training up loads of volunteers etc (and after they’ve done a recruitment cycle anyway) that really having a shorter period in which to accept offers might not be any different!

The resistance imo is the current system entrenches current relative advantage and that will not be relinquished willingly.

I speak as someone who has benefited from that advantage which is built in to our system.

Do schools regularly make 'aspirational' predictions? That's not been my experience at all

I think some schools do, yes. According to UCAS, in 2019 just over 43% of students missed their predicted grades, and only one in five students met or exceeded their predicted grades. Link here www.ucas.com/file/292726/download?token=wswAnzge

On DD’s school reports they used to put target grades, and currently working at grades, so we had an idea all along how well she was going to do. Fortunately, with excellent teaching her chemistry CWA grade moved up from a C to an A by the time she sat her A levels.

Would it be unrealistic to bring back AS levels and base offers on those? DD sat AS levels in 2017, but they were uncoupled, so she sat the full two years’ worth of work A levels in 2018.

*The resistance imo is the current system entrenches current relative advantage and that will not be relinquished willingly.8

I take your point, but the access/WP strategy has gained so much ground (even under the Tories) in the last 5 years, it is now a metric for institutions to receive funding. So in reality the students hold adjusted offers anyway, and they will be adjusted again if necessary once results come out. Students can still be given adjusted offers with a post-results system.

Though I can see Oxbridge being unhappy with a post-result system.

The resistance imo is the current system entrenches current relative advantage and that will not be relinquished willingly.
I speak as someone who has benefited from that advantage which is built in to our system.
I’m being a bit thick - can you explain this to me please?