The Fifteenth Republic - A Level and GCSE Results storm coming!

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Just seen this. What. A . Joke.

What about schools that do tow sets of mocks??

My class did shit in their mocks.

It still ignores any concept of coursework, too. What if that was amazing?

But, that aside -Bonkers.

The BBC article says they can appeal to the exam board if they want to use their mock result.

Gavin is just really thick, isn't he??

This is insane.

They're literally making it up as they go along.

Can we all just make up some mock results now?

Apparently relying on teachers' predictions unfairly inflates resultsbut relying on mock marking doesn't???

We did one set of mocks, some schools do loads.
No subject did the same amount of papers as in the summer so all grade boundaries were invented. Some teachers like to be harsh and others encouraging...
Some subjects were busy with coursework/practical work and didn't do mocks at all.
We did nearly exam conditions for our marks but not quite because we can't afford to invigilate on the 1:30 exam ratio except in actual exams! So perhaps all our mocks will be invalid anyway???

And I bet now we will have to wait weeks for the detail... (well obviously, because they've only invented this all tonight!)

Will this apply to GCSEs too?

My class did worse in their March mock than their November mock because their March mock was a November paper which always have stupid grade boundaries.

Give me a minute, I’ll just be nipping to school to use the shredder for something...

We were expecting some sort of announcement on the 11th, but I can’t imagine this was on anyone’s radar

Some of our kids took their papers home. Just ignore me altering the numbers in the spreadsheet over here...

@Piggywaspushed

Can we all just make up some mock results now?

As data manager too, I'd twigged this and locked all the mock results so that no-one can do this at our school... but not all data managers are going to be working at 11pm at night! And this whole thing about mock results somehow going to be more reliable than CAG that were far more considered and signed off by lots of people is just ludicrous...

Noble a few articles do say it is GCSEs too.

The kid who found the mock paper on the internet before the exam and memorised the mark scheme is going to be laughing isn’t he?

We always use the harshest grade boundaries in the mock to err on the side of caution. Great.

What a kick in the teeth to everyone in schools and at exam boards, Ofqual etc... who had put in place a system that was probably actually as good as it would ever be in the circumstances.

Exactly this. There’s no perfect solution, but what’s likely to be better:

• a system devised by the experts who responsible for awarding qualifications, subject to consultation and review, and implemented by people who had been given clear guidance and worked on it for days and days and days?
• something made up in 5 minutes in a panic and without checking whether it even makes sense?

The kid who found the mock paper on the internet before the exam and memorised the mark scheme is going to be laughing isn’t he?

Oh god, I’d forgotten we had a couple of those.

@HipTightOnions

The kid who found the mock paper on the internet before the exam and memorised the mark scheme is going to be laughing isn’t he?

Oh god, I’d forgotten we had a couple of those.

We had a couple that had gone through them with private tutors.

"Students who would like to use a valid mock result will be able to do so through the appeals process, with individuals notifying their school or college who will provide evidence of their mock results to their exam board."

Loads of exam officers/data managers (certainly in my authority) are on term-time only contracts (plus a couple of days for results). So much extra work for them, and students/parents will want it done right away. That's if we have any evidence still anyway....
[I'm actually employed all year-round but I have plenty of other work I need to be doing later in the holidays not faffing around working out if mock grades are valid or not and navigating the cumbersome systems to submit them. Also bet no-one's told the exam boards this yet, they can't just invent a submission system overnight!]

I’m just thinking back to before lockdown when I was patiently explaining to the kids ‘no, you won’t be getting your mock grades and no, I won’t be deciding what grade you get, because that would be just stupid’.

And the threads on here.

Turns out they were right. Bloody hell.

Let’s just give everyone an A or A*. We can then push any problem onto universities to sort out.

Oh Gavin.

“I'm sitting here open-mouthed in horror. In twenty years of following ed policy in England I can't think of a worse decision handled in a worse way.”

Says Sam Freedman, former advisor to Michael Gove.

twitter.com/samfr/status/1293304249565220865?s=21

Surely this can't stand as a decision:

Even within a school there is massive variation.
Some teachers mark rigorously according to the mark scheme.
Some give leeway.
Some even get the kids to mark it themselves!

Then there's the school variation.
Some schools do in a hall all at once, others do exam conditions but in individual classes so not all at the same time. Those that didn't could have conferred. Even if all at once, some had clashes and did it later so had time to confer.

Never mind that we always make up the grade boundaries!
If schools didn't do a full paper the grades are meaningless as the papers not been constructed with the same sort of diligence over differing difficulties.
If schools did do a full paper then loads of students always cheat and memorise the mark scheme.

This is just taking incompetence to a new level

@CountDuckulasKetchup

Surely this can't stand as a decision:

Even within a school there is massive variation.
Some teachers mark rigorously according to the mark scheme.
Some give leeway.
Some even get the kids to mark it themselves!

Then there's the school variation.
Some schools do in a hall all at once, others do exam conditions but in individual classes so not all at the same time. Those that didn't could have conferred. Even if all at once, some had clashes and did it later so had time to confer.

Never mind that we always make up the grade boundaries!
If schools didn't do a full paper the grades are meaningless as the papers not been constructed with the same sort of diligence over differing difficulties.
If schools did do a full paper then loads of students always cheat and memorise the mark scheme.

This is just taking incompetence to a new level

I too have woken to this news in disbelief, could it get much worse?

Agree with everything everyone has said and to add to the list about, schools hold mocks at different times. We hold our mocks in November, that can also have an impact on outcome too.

Omg, this is fucking ridiculous.

Sorry for all secondary teachers!