A level grade inflation - consequences?

[Skneesrgud]

For the schools that were named this weekend as having considerably inflated A level grades last summer, are there to be any consequences?

OFSTED and ISI presumably won’t address the issue in their inspections.

Will governors or existing / prospective parents even view it as a negative?

Ultimately, did their headteachers take a gamble that paid off? Did they actually do anything wrong?

That’s a really interesting question @adderadderankerchief .

Any state school that inflated its grades will experience a decline this year in their ‘value-added’ score. Schools in England and Wales have one of the most rigorous accountability systems in the world - they will be answerable to Ofsted.

Independent schools don’t have accurate ‘value-added’ scores and their accountability system is led by the ISI (an army of ladies in twinsets sighing, ‘lovely!’, as they cluelessly wander around schools as though they are on a day out with the National Trust). It is really for the media to publish their grades from 2019, 2020, 2021 and 2022, to show the public where some headteachers abused their position and, frankly, brought their profession into disrepute.

… but they didn’t, did they? None of them did.

And Ofqual are the public office responsible for regulating qualifications. Even if one understands how it all played out and sympathises with the circumstances in which exam board moderation effectively did not happen, there should be an inquiry into how some schools were able to significantly inflate the grades of Ofqual regulated qualifications.

There should also be some moment to reflect on why there exist headteachers whose moral compass and professional integrity does not extend to sustaining a robust national qualification system.

And why do these characters find themselves leading schools in the independent sector? And quite where does the bad judgement end? Safeguarding? I think we know the answer to that one.

"their accountability system is led by the ISI (an army of ladies in twinsets sighing, ‘lovely!’, as they cluelessly wander around schools as though they are on a day out with the National Trust)""

This made me laugh, but to be fair, I think it's a little out of date. Ask the likes of Westminster, which had a pretty bruising encounter with the ISI recently, and failed its safeguarding inspection. These inspections are no longer just a cosy walk in the park.

As for the figures, yes, I do agree that they should all have to publish. But I think the tendency to ascribe the worst motives to all private schools is just wrong. And there's also a fair amount of dodgy maths going on. When you're looking at a percentage drop from the 60s to the 50s, you can't just say that an 8% difference is the same as an 8% difference between the 30s and the 20s - it's not, because the numbers are bigger. Another evaluation (mentioned in the Guardian article, but right at the bottom of course), estimates that a private school pupil's chance of getting an A was about 20% higher in 2022 than 2021 - the same as for a state school pupil.

And as for dodgy characters running private schools - oh come on. You think every academy chain head is a paragon of virtue? I have absolutely no doubt that there are some 'bad apples' in the private sector, as well as a bit of sharp practice in basically decent schools. But there is also some absolutely phenomenally good, innovative and well-resourced education going on, which it is very difficult to replicate in the state sector. This idea that all private schools just care about the money or the PR is absolute bollocks. As a fee-paying parent, you pays your money, you takes your choice (if you can get in). You do your homework and you pick a school that you believe to be providing a fantastic education. Yes, perhaps there is a risk that you encounter an unscrupulous head - though a) your homework is designed to avoid that, and b) I don't think going state is any guarantee of avoiding that either. I would rather take the risk of an unscrupulous head than the certainty of a school too closely influenced by Gavin Williamson et al. I am of course lucky to have that choice.

Any state school that inflated its grades will experience a decline this year in their ‘value-added’ score.

League tables weren't published for 2020 or 2021, progress 8 wasn't calculated and Ofsted have been told not to compare results for those years as they were extraordinary.

This is what gets me. WHY didn't Ofqual do their jobs in 2020 and 2021? Ok we couldn't have exams in person in big halls and the school's had to administer them based on coursework and internal testing. Fair enough but why weren't they then sent to all the Ofqual people working from home for normal moderation? Or were they all too busy gardening on furlough?

I also think some of it wasn't self serving or malicious. I think many heads and teachers, in both sectors, felt sorry for the kids who missed large chunks of schooling and were stuck inside doing home learning and so everyone was being as kind and generous as possible. Wrong in hindsight, of course, like lockdown itself for schoolchildren probably was, but it was a very extraordinary time. I still don't understand why, if this resulted in a public qualification, it wasn't monitored and normalised by Ofqual. I was working like a dog from home during lockdown, why weren't they?

Oh that’s interesting a friends daughter (private school) received all 8/9s in her 2020 GCSEs after being a 4/5 student and 3 in maths, and received low results this years A-levels at the time in 2020 she thought it was “hilarious”

Fair enough but why weren't they then sent to all the Ofqual people working from home for normal moderation?

It was the exam boards doing the moderation. We had to keep records of everything and all scripts. They were supposed to do random sampling of schools to check standards and do targeted sampling where the results looked dodgy compared to previous years.

The guidance was here. www.jcq.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/JCQ-Guidance-on-the-Determination-of-Grades-for-A-AS-Levels-and-GCSEs-Summer-2021.pdf

I work at a private school and I can categorically assert that the 2020 gcse grades were insane. Off the top of my head I remember that no pupil got below a 7 in any science or MFL subject. The press releases that celebrated their amazing grades were quite frankly and embarrassment.

And my apologies, I have just posted on the wrong thread! This was meant for the other one about private schools and grade inflation!

I was a HoD during 2020 and 2021. My subject was chosen for moderation at both GCSE and A level. I had to send off a considerable sized sample of folders, each with multiple assessments in. We also produced a "grade narration" document for every student which described how we arrived at their grade, including taking into account mitigating circumstances including covid related disruption. Obviously everyone experienced covid related disruption but there some students who had 4 periods of two weeks of self isolation due to being a close contact and others who had none, so great variation across the cohort.

This was a huge volume of work to undertake, and completely different to our normal yearly practice of preparing students for external exams.

I heard NOTHING back from the board. My exams officer seemed to think the sample wouldn't even be looked at.

That was in 2021 btw. And in a state school.

So did they? Or did they just do it badly?

How did nobody notice before grades were awarded that some schools had massively inflated?

It was clearly only a few schools, my DC was a consistent 6/7 student prior to COVID and got 7s - personally I think he would have actually got more 8s under normal examined circumstances, as he's a last minute crammer. But anyway, his (private) school didn't overinflate I don't think, and certainly hasn't appeared on any list. The problem now is they are being ultra conservative at A level time to try and maintain that squeaky clean image. So the hurt and disruption for the actual 17 year olds goes on, when doing better than predicted actually hurts you. My son has friends at a state sixth form college who are being predicted 3As on mock results of 1C and 2D's. His mate at another (state) school got 49% in his last internal mock exam and is being predicted a B, in a subject they both do. My son is being predicted 3 Bs on mock results of Bs that were in the high 70%s. The message that is sending to these 17y old kids (who have never sat public exams remember) is well why bother trying, the school think I can never improve so why bother trying? Or, on the flipside, wow I must be better than I thought I was so I'll apply to aspirational unis. And how can it be right that his mate can apply to a 3As university and he can't?

I must admit as a parent experiencing this for the first time, I am very, very surprised at the lack of rigour and consistency in the public exams system. I thought that was the point of public exams? An A indicates a particular level of competency in a subject, A* mastery of the subject etc. I don't really understand why it isn't clear across the board what constitutes an A, what constitutes a B standard etc. Surely experienced teachers can see that? Were they just being kind and generous because of COVID?

Interestingly my friend's daughter who is struggling on her uni course that she got into with 3 As is in that list of schools that massively overinflated.

There was only one other subject sampled afaik so whole departments where nothing was checked (though I suspect mine wasn't checked either), so no real accountability from the boards at all.

Also the guidance was not fit for purpose and the grade descriptors were a total joke.

@TrufflesForBreakfast but that's not just a private school thing! I think that's what some of us are getting so irritated about. Yesterday I saw a tweet from my old (state) school, crowing about how its 2022 GCSE results are the 'best ever!' (apart from 2021) - well, er, yes... Whereas my kids' private school quietly published its results online, congratulated the pupils, but spelled out that the results (which were incidentally higher than in 2021) could not be meaningfully compared, and didn't mention the percentage except on its website. There are big variations across both sectors - but the papers are desperate to make this into a private school story.

Sounds like a lot of the blame for this mess lies with Ofqual and the examining boards. I also know a couple of teachers who were drowned under a volume of extra work to provide those narratives and reports that nobody looked at. What a surprise.

@adderadderankerchief and yet what does the data show? No surprise that it is being made in to a mostly private school thing, it very clearly IS mostly a private school thing. Of course there are exceptions, but the data is clear. Newspapers don't publish without reason, and without putting their stories through lawyers!

What's been published? The top 10 schools that overdid it who are all private? How does that mean it wasn't happening in state schools as well. It clearly was, as a state school teacher on this thread has asserted, and definitely is now they've moved into A levels.

I must admit as a parent experiencing this for the first time, I am very, very surprised at the lack of rigour and consistency in the public exams system. I thought that was the point of public exams? An A indicates a particular level of competency in a subject, A mastery of the subject etc. I don't really understand why it isn't clear across the board what constitutes an A, what constitutes a B standard etc. Surely experienced teachers can see that? Were they just being kind and generous because of COVID?*

It doesn't work like this although I can see why you'd assume it would. The boundaries for each grade change each year. There is not set standard for an a*, it depends how people have done relevant to the cohort.

I also think there is a lack of appreciation of just how difficult it was for teachers to be responsible for awarding grades, in the context of the highly accountable and punitive results driven context we work in. We should never have been put in that position.

For example, in my class, say I had 10 students who I felt were working at an A. In reality, had they sat an exam, some will have had a bad day and underperformed. However, I couldn't fairly predict, in the Tags year, who that would be, so the safest and fairest thing would be to give them all an A. A lot of inflation will have resulted from that.

Bold fail

@FAQs this happened to my niece. Got very 'surprising' GSCE results in 2020 so was encouraged to go for medicine, given top predictions by her indie, got offer to a great Uni - then got very average A levels with the science scores meaning she is unlikely to ever be a doctor unless she circumnavigates and starts on another course. Her school was one of the ones mentioned in the Feb list and I think they led her and her parents up the garden path. But at least she didn't end up on a course that she would have been completely overwhelmed by.

@Sonnex If you look at the percentage of children educated in state and the percentage educated at fee paying then yes it is truly shocking how many indie schools were in the top tier of grade inflation

How did nobody notice before grades were awarded that some schools had massively inflated?

That’s the key question. There was a process that was meant to be followed. There was meant to be quality assurance. If some schools have utterly inexplicable results in that context, then there needs to be an inquiry into the QA process.

It's worth looking at 2020 too. I know one of the schools on that list set their grades according to a normal distribution of grades from the previous two years' results. That's not unreasonable.

It didn't help that there was a last week before results u-turn on 2020 moderation and grades. Then a different system again for 2021. It was all a mess and I don't think Gavin Williamson covered himself in glory.

Worth remembering that in 2020, schools were told that pupils would not be receiving the grades assigned by teachers, but that they would be amended by algorithm to fit a national profile.

I know some schools tried to anticipate the algorithm and produced what they thought it would, and some schools were optimistic with their TAGs thinking that the algorithm would sort it out. Then the algorithm was revoked, kids got the grades submitted by schools and it was horrible.