Exams cancelled 2

[Orangeblossom1977]

Started a new thread as last one is full.

DDs college, like many schools, are choosing to anonymse their exam papers to prevent teacher bias. Whilst that seems like a good thing, it now sounds like all the evidence for their final grade will come from the exams. Otherwise, how could they link up their exam script with any previous grades?

DDs college are currently planning to use a series of short exams for each subject. They won't test on work done in lockdowns. They will know what topics are in each test. DD of course sounds thrilled by this plan as it lessens the stress on her - and she has been very stressed and putting in 15+ hours extra work per week.

But, my concern remains that short tests with known topics, favours the lazy crammer. DD does very well in exams but she studies consistently, usually with the added advantage of breadth and depth when taking an exam. I'm fearful that advantage will be lost and now only competing with those in her college cohort, the margins between winners and losers will be so fine.

Them there's the whole question of what will the plan be if someone has covid. And if home testing is still the norm, how do you confirm someone is not pretending to have covid so they can take their exam later?

[quote HercwasanEnemyofEducation]@notdonna Yes. This is the same every year though, only you're trying to go up the national cohort.[/quote]
Yes, it is isn’t it? I know this. I really do, yet it remains a hard concept to accept. I’m probably just another disillusioned mother who thinks their kid could be in a brighter cohort and could miss a high grade because of this. The teacher said yonks before all this malarkey that they were a class that just got her subject and could well imagine straight A*/As. Last few years only 20% got As. So she can’t give a clean sweep of As can’t she? If it was nationally aligned then maybe she’d be correct.

2020 isn't included because (for good reason) grades were inflated. It would unfairly advantage this cohort to include those results. They were also not externally verified and haven't had any checks.

Exams always favour crammers. This system is worse because students will probably have more ongoing assessments than the terminal exams they'd normally take. Many schools are using mocks taken before lockdown too. This doesn't favour crammers. It sounds like your dd will do fine.

The brighter cohort thing is tricky. We have the students ks2 data so know whether to expect better grades and can award accordingly. Very small groups, particularly at A Level, will not need to follow previous results.

@HercwasanEnemyofEducation DS is at a small private school so his Y11 cohort is about 50 students, will they have to follow previous results?

@ineedaholidaynow They will have to take them into consideration. Ofqual have said their sampling for moderation will be risk based as well as random. This means any centres where the grades seem very different will likely be moderated. The school will know this and use their data accordingly. If schools have evidence of the grades being better, they should be fine.

If it helps, think in terms of percentages. With 50 students sitting a qualification, each student is 2%. Therefore you would expect the grade profile to be broadly similar. Whereas a qualification with 5 students, each student is 20% so the grade profile could legitimately be very different.

Thanks @HercwasanEnemyofEducation I am sure you are right and also schools and colleges will be aware of these issues. I'm not sure I agree exams always favour the crammer, not with A level sciences anyway. They are so content heavy. Mind you, a system that favours those with a better long term memory and good recall isn't ideal either.

@Fortyfifty

Thanks *@HercwasanEnemyofEducation* I am sure you are right and also schools and colleges will be aware of these issues. I'm not sure I agree exams always favour the crammer, not with A level sciences anyway. They are so content heavy. Mind you, a system that favours those with a better long term memory and good recall isn't ideal either.

No ideal system for all types of students unfortunately. Wish there was. Interesting to hear that this year’s results won’t be in line with last years because they were inflated yet there’s lots in the media about this years being inflated just because they’re ‘teacher assessed’ - this needs correcting doesn’t it.

Thanks herc what year is KS2 data please? Their school do MidYis and something else later that predicts grades. No idea how accurate these type of assessments are nor if/how they are used.

I think the "inflation" this year is probably a ham fisted attempt by the media to say these grades won't show a consistent standard of work. I don't think we will see huge grade inflation, maybe a couple of percent rise.

Ks2 data is end of year 6. Midyis I don't know much about. Guessing it's similar to CATs which are a general ability/aptitude test. As with all this data, there is correlation but there are always outliers.

The brighter cohort thing is tricky. We have the students ks2 data so know whether to expect better grades and can award accordingly.

Except the KS2 data may have limited use because the current year 11s were the first cohort to take the new SATS. So there is no direct comparison.

This is true, there isn't a direct comparison. But level 4b treated as a scaled score of 100 is a good estimate. Lots of schools also do CATs which are comparable.

Not many schools see huge swings either way in grade profiles year on year, particularly in the core subjects. The odd few percent yes, but this will be fine under the system this year.

Not many schools see huge swings either way in grade profiles year on year, particularly in the core subjects. The odd few percent yes, but this will be fine under the system this year.
That’s really interesting herc and somewhat reassuring thank you.

Will colleges look what A level students actually obtained at GCSE in relation to what was predicted by their teachers, to get a feel for how they work\wouldve performed in actual exams?
I fear there is no room for students to 'surprise ' their teachers and do better than predicted this year. DS1 for example, did better than predicted by up to two levels in over half of his GCSE's.

*@NotDonna
'The teacher said yonks before all this malarkey that they were a class that just got her subject and could well imagine straight A/As. Last few years only 20% got As. So she can’t give a clean sweep of As can’t she?'
Surely if they all get similar assessment results she will give them the same grade.
Ie. if they all score 90/100 they will all have to have the same grade and there will be evidence to back that up.
The interesting thing will be who decides that 90/100 is a g9.

So if a cohort is particularly “bad” (I’m thinking of DS’s rather challenging year) and DS does well (comes near the top of the cohort ranking), will he get an 8 or a 9 even if in another school it would be a 6 or a 7? Because that’s what it sounds like but I can’t get my head around it!

@ihearttc that’s exactly what I’m trying to work out. It seems completely inconsistent between schools.

The assessments will be designed so that all students don't all get 90/100!

@ihearttc
Pretty much yes. Again it's obviously more nuanced and schools will need evidence etc. But there is nothing beyond a random/risk based moderation to check cross centre parity.

I’ve just read that they have confirmed that all assessment materials will be available online from Easter for students to see what’s on the exam papers? Can anyone confirm if that is the case? If so surely that gives a huge advantage to the schools who are making the students sit the exam papers?

@ihearttc

I’ve just read that they have confirmed that all assessment materials will be available online from Easter for students to see what’s on the exam papers? Can anyone confirm if that is the case? If so surely that gives a huge advantage to the schools who are making the students sit the exam papers?

Hold on! That surely can’t be happening.

Whaaaaaaat?
Where have you read that?
Do they provide the answer too

I’ve removed the name of the paper as it’s local to me but it was apparently said on an Ofqual webinar...

Here is the other part of the article

It's true.

@MrsHamlet

Wow! How do you feel about it? DS’s school aren’t apparently using the exams so I’m not sure how that is going to be fair (I realise non of it is fair though) across the board. Surely it’s just going to mean massively inflated grades.