Are some schools marking mocks higher than others?

[Whenallthelights]

Just read something on another thread about some schools giving aspirational marks, others not wanting DC to become complacent.

Are you worried that mock results will translate directly into Centre Assessed Grades?

There is no rule that says schools have to all mark mocks the same way.
If they are using a full exam paper from a previous year then they will have the same grade boundaries to work with. However for more subjective subjects like English they can definitely mark generously or harshly.
(Actually I can see a reason for being inconsistent even within a school.)

Additionally schools do mocks at different times.

=> A school can't just use mock results to set grades.

Thanks @TeenPlusTwenties, yes that's my concern. My DS hasn't finished his mocks yet, but knows friends at other schools who were able to cheat during their mocks. The possibility of school closures has made me start worrying. I'm going to try and calm down!

But all schools set different mocks anyway so there is no comparison between what DCs from different schools get.

Teachers will know their students, and will be able to assess their abilities using mock results as part of that assessment (which they have set), if they need to provide Centre Assessed Grades again this year.

I think after last year's chaos, schools/teachers will be keeping an even closer track on students progress.

OP are you talking about mock exam grades, target grades or predicted grades?

On our system, target grades are generated centrally based on KS2 SATs/CATS tests. It drives me nuts; as a music teacher, excellence in Maths/English at age 11 does not equal a grade 8 or 9 in Music 5 years later. Our target grades are very aspirational but in my subject, the SLT "gets it" that good grades in Music depend on something more.

Predicted grades are what we think a kid could get based on their work to date, if they continued on the same trajectory. Finally, mock exam grades use the published grade boundaries for the paper they sat. Y11 sat the 2018 paper as their mock so we used 2018 grade boundaries.

As far as CAGs go, last year we spent ages looking at the group of 18 students. Yes, we had their mock exam but that is only 40% of the total. The other 60% is what used to be termed coursework. Most had recorded their performances so we could mark those pretty accurately. Some compositions were not finished; our school deadline was after lockdown. However, we had copies of what they had done and worked out what they could have achieved, trying to be fair. Then we had to rank them from best to worst and allocate grades to them.

Whilst you are right to be concerned about what will happen in schools next term, please be assured that most of us want the best for our students whilst balancing that with being fair to all. I keep telling my current year 11s to keep working hard, try their best in every test and ensure everything is saved securely. We have to be able to produce evidence for the CAGs we award. One bad test/exam is not the end of the world.

No two schools mark mocks in the same way. All mocks are incompatible.

Many schools give artificially elevated predicted grades to get a better position on the league tables. Great pressure is applied by MAT management in particular.

My DS hasn't finished his mocks yet, but knows friends at other schools who were able to cheat during their mocks

Yes, DD has said this. Several of the mock papers used were 2019's GCSEs. DD avoided looking at them as she suspected that might happen and wanted a true picture of how she was doing, but many of her friends revised directly from them.

If they do enough past papers, they will find the same, or very similar questions reappear. That is the advantage of revising from past papers.

2019 exams for my subject are on a secure website , I believe this is same for most. They are kept like that so that students cannot find them before their mocks.

Of course they are. That's why Controlled Assessments had to replace coursework, then those disappeared too. I remember reporting a (religious, ironically) centre for submitting CATs that were largely derivative, and in some cases, identical. Never heard anything back from the exam board which gave me little faith as a teacher. At least with central exams we can spot the rogue markers and quietly recommend the for retraining.

Yes, some schools will categorically mark more generously than others. Conversely, some will use the harshest boundaries so as to avoid nasty shocks.

There needs to be some happy medium between the two, because we can't have GCSE students sitting the same exam regardless of whether they've had eight weeks' self isolation or none; and we can't have CAGs without a nationwide standardisation process.

I don't think the current incumbent understands this at all.