Exam Results.

[EtoileSportiveDeDerby]

According to  

9 hours ago, ilkleyram said:

They might, of course, upgrade them even more considering that parents able to afford to educate their children privately have a wide range of choice as to where they spend their £40k a year and will no doubt judge a school's success by its place in the qualification based league tables slightly more than someone sending their child to the local comprehensive.

Of course that £40k a year also buys and funds class sizes around 15 rather than 30, access to a huge range of well funded, well taught extra-curricular activities and sport on top class pitches, to pupils who have largely been selected by success through a competitive process.  You might expect, therefore, that in general their educational performance (if GCSE/Alevel passes is a measure) might be above average

According to Newsnight, the algorithm used to adjust the marks has an in built bias that will help private schools. It works on the basis that where there is a small number of students it is is not statistically correct to adjust marks to spread the marks. Private schools with their guaranteed small classes are not affected as badly by the "algorithm". What i think is rlly terrible is seeing that not only the kids could not be taught properly on top of that they get shafted when it comes to the marking. If ever there was a year to show leniency it should be this year FFS

[1of4]

28 minutes ago, Needlesh said:

The education authorities have done the best they could in unprecedented circumstances.

Some kids will have got away with a lucky break, some will have been harshly treated.

There was no viable alternative that anyone has brought to my attention, so lets just crack on.

Yes lets have some faceless bureaucrat that uses an algorithm made up by another faceless bureaucrat, that decides 80% of the pupils in one school should have their estimated grades marked down by one or even two grades. 

Lets ignore the the teachers who have an expert understanding of each individual student and the grades they are capable of attaining.

But lets tell those disadvantaged by these unprecedented circumstances and a government that has no interest in their future, to crack on. Lets get your social security number sorted, as you'll be needing that when you log onto the gov.uk jobseekers website.

[MaltRam]

38 minutes ago, 1of4 said:

Yes lets have some faceless bureaucrat that uses an algorithm made up by another faceless bureaucrat, that decides 80% of the pupils in one school should have their estimated grades marked down by one or even two grades. 

Lets ignore the the teachers who have an expert understanding of each individual student and the grades they are capable of attaining.

But lets tell those disadvantaged by these unprecedented circumstances and a government that has no interest in their future, to crack on. Lets get your social security number sorted, as you'll be needing that when you log onto the gov.uk jobseekers website.

Fine words. And your viable alternative is just about to be posted, I suppose?

[1of4]

8 minutes ago, Needlesh said:

Fine words. And your viable alternative is just about to be posted, I suppose?

The alternative as already been ignored, using the estimates given by the teachers.  I've already pointed out that they're the experts on what grades each pupil is capable of attaining. But we know this government don't believe in or listen to experts. Besides to many teachers are members of a union and they definitely can't be trusted.

[Norman]

28 minutes ago, 1of4 said:

The alternative as already been ignored, using the estimates given by the teachers.  I've already pointed out that they're the experts on what grades each pupil is capable of attaining. But we know this government don't believe in or listen to experts. Besides to many teachers are members of a union and they definitely can't be trusted.

Teachers are experts in overestimating grades, the facts would say. 

[Andicis]

My little brother got his a level ''results'' this year - got about right for him to be fair. The problem is the same people complaining about every little release of coronavirus regulation are the same people now moaning about exam results. People fighting every little freedom returned are the ones fighting against young people themselves.

[1of4]

2 hours ago, Norman said:

Teachers are experts in overestimating grades, the facts would say. 

Or the fact would say, for various reasons a student who sits an exam was unable to obtain the grades that as been estimated for them.

May be a little different to an A level exam. When I was learning to drive, my driving instructor after a number of lessons estimated that I was capable of passing a driving test. Did I pass that test? Due to me being nervous while taking the test, no I didn't.

Was this failure of my ability to be a competent driver, an over estimation by my instructor or was it due to me being unable to control my nerves. Without knowing all the variables, the facts can sometimes lead to a different conclusion.

[Gaspode]

Teachers are aware of the importance of school league tables and also want pretty  much all of their kids to get the best possible grades, so the natural reaction is to be over generous when asked to predict grades (as is apparent from the numbers being downgraded).

It should have been announced that league tables would be suspended this year and teachers should have been asked to predict percentage scores rather than individual grades to allow flexibility in grade boundaries when the final grades were allocated.

However unfair it seems, a system that has excessive numbers of higher grades devalues the results and has a knock on effect on universities who end up admitting kids that simply aren’t up to the demands of their chosen courses. Next summer there will likely be far higher numbers of university dropouts as kids realise they can’t cope with the pressures of competing with higher attaining students or simply can’t ‘make the grade’ in their end of year exams.....

 There has to be moderation in awarding results and however unfair that seems, the frankly ridiculous suggestion to ‘go with the teachers’ will cause far more issues than it solves......

[Ghost of Clough]

Predicted grades are usually based on mock results and are what a student needs to apply to universities. If they're close to the grade above they'll usually give that higher grade, if the student asks

[nottingram]

1 hour ago, Gaspode said:

Teachers are aware of the importance of school league tables and also want pretty  much all of their kids to get the best possible grades, so the natural reaction is to be over generous when asked to predict grades (as is apparent from the numbers being downgraded).

It should have been announced that league tables would be suspended this year and teachers should have been asked to predict percentage scores rather than individual grades to allow flexibility in grade boundaries when the final grades were allocated.

However unfair it seems, a system that has excessive numbers of higher grades devalues the results and has a knock on effect on universities who end up admitting kids that simply aren’t up to the demands of their chosen courses. Next summer there will likely be far higher numbers of university dropouts as kids realise they can’t cope with the pressures of competing with higher attaining students or simply can’t ‘make the grade’ in their end of year exams.....

 There has to be moderation in awarding results and however unfair that seems, the frankly ridiculous suggestion to ‘go with the teachers’ will cause far more issues than it solves......

While I accept we are probably only seeing extreme examples posted on social media and the like, is it not better to slightly overestimate than slightly under estimate. With overestimation you might get a few kids dropping out of uni in 6 months, or going to slightly better unis than they may otherwise have attended, and a slightly more competitive job market either now or in 3-4 years time. It would be at that point you would hope that the kids who “deserved” their places at uni originally would stand out anyway.

But with underestimation you may have kids who would have got into uni unable to go to their Russell Group, or not getting in at all, which to me seems more of an issue both now and when this cohort would graduate.

Again I would caveat that by saying we are obviously seeing extreme cases where people are predicted A*A*A and getting BBB or something like that - I am aware not everyone will have had such a differential that would materially affect the uni they can reasonably go to.

I would also say if I was 18 again, no way would I be going to uni this year because I don’t think it would be even half as good an experience as normal, but that’s just me.

[Gaspode]

25 minutes ago, nottingram said:

While I accept we are probably only seeing extreme examples posted on social media and the like, is it not better to slightly overestimate than slightly under estimate. With overestimation you might get a few kids dropping out of uni in 6 months, or going to slightly better unis than they may otherwise have attended, and a slightly more competitive job market either now or in 3-4 years time. It would be at that point you would hope that the kids who “deserved” their places at uni originally would stand out anyway.

But with underestimation you may have kids who would have got into uni unable to go to their Russell Group, or not getting in at all, which to me seems more of an issue both now and when this cohort would graduate.

Again I would caveat that by saying we are obviously seeing extreme cases where people are predicted A*A*A and getting BBB or something like that - I am aware not everyone will have had such a differential that would materially affect the uni they can reasonably go to.

I would also say if I was 18 again, no way would I be going to uni this year because I don’t think it would be even half as good an experience as normal, but that’s just me.

I'm not suggesting we should underestimate - I'm oposed to the suggestion that we should abandon any pretence of moderation and simply go along with the treacher's alloted grades - which have quite clearly been over generous....

[MaltRam]

9 hours ago, 1of4 said:

The alternative as already been ignored, using the estimates given by the teachers.  I've already pointed out that they're the experts on what grades each pupil is capable of attaining. But we know this government don't believe in or listen to experts. Besides to many teachers are members of a union and they definitely can't be trusted.

The teachers gave an estimate. When taken across the whole nation, those estimates have to be normalised into the same curve as any other normal year, which is what your favoutite 'faceless bureaucrats' have done. You think the estimates should have stood, un-normalised, so this year gets better results than any other?

[ariotofmyown]

Statistical Modeling is great for providing overall results and the historical success of a school would be a great predictor for the results of a population. 

It's also great for marketing where you could, for example, target 18 year olds who live in a good school catchment area with university adverts, knowing they are more likely to have higher grades.

Using these models to give out grades to individuals just seems incorrect used of data to me though. A kid from a good school could end up with a better grade than an identical performing kid at a poor school, purely because the school history is the only difference between them.

[nottingram]

9 minutes ago, Gaspode said:

I'm not suggesting we should underestimate - I'm oposed to the suggestion that we should abandon any pretence of moderation and simply go along with the treacher's alloted grades - which have quite clearly been over generous....

Sorry, yes, poor wording on my part. I mean in terms of erring on the side of caution, overestimation seems much fairer than the risk of underestimation. If some algorithmic model is giving kids worse results than they otherwise would have got, I would say that is fundamentally less fair than teachers perhaps overestimating the kids grades, which is only human nature and I know full well can happen based on my own experience. If grades are slightly overestimated that is more likely to correct itself through market forces than the alternative, in my opinion. I think it would be naive to think this model isn’t going to shaft an awful lot of kids, which is a real shame. I know there is no perfect system, but this just seems a poor way of going about things.

[Day]

If you’re not happy with your grade you can appeal it, take a mock result or sit the exam in the autumn....which if you was to do that you would have had more time than any other student to prepare for your exam.

So what’s the problem here, people are kicking off about it, if it was a this is it, don’t like it? Tough situation I could understand it, but the opportunity to sit the exam and be graded on that is still there. 

[dog]

I was a secondary teacher for nearly thirty years.

If I had a group of twenty A level kids I would predict each one the highest grade that they might get on a good day.

That would probably be higher than what the group as a whole would get.

Is that grade inflation?

 

[Norman]

16 minutes ago, David said:

If you’re not happy with your grade you can appeal it, take a mock result or sit the exam in the autumn....which if you was to do that you would have had more time than any other student to prepare for your exam.

So what’s the problem here, people are kicking off about it, if it was a this is it, don’t like it? Tough situation I could understand it, but the opportunity to sit the exam and be graded on that is still there. 

I wouldn't want be paying for university fees this year as it stands anyway. 

Take a year out, earn some money if the job market allows, sit your exams properly and go to university when you're going to get your moneys worth. 

I'd encourage all of them to go Labouring on a building site for 6 months. They might not think about dropping out so fast the year after, they'd realise why they are at uni, and those who pick gender studies will realise men and women are different. 

[Ghost of Clough]

29 minutes ago, Norman said:

I wouldn't want be paying for university fees this year as it stands anyway. 

Take a year out, earn some money if the job market allows, sit your exams properly and go to university when you're going to get your moneys worth. 

I'd encourage all of them to go Labouring on a building site for 6 months. They might not think about dropping out so fast the year after, they'd realise why they are at uni, and those who pick gender studies will realise men and women are different. 

So... never?

[BaaLocks]

16 hours ago, 1of4 said:

Well the younger members of our society learnt a valuable lesson today. That getting screwed over by the controlling elite is something that they'll have to get accustomed to.

Don't be lulled into the argument that this was a conspiracy of the rich over the poor. For starters, this government is nowhere near competent enough to be able to engineer that. Secondly, this just falls right into the trap they want you to take - fall back into the old mode of being repressed and underserved. True, state schools suffered more but everyone (unless you took Serbo-Croat in a class of eight) suffered. For three reasons.

1: The reaction to this from the government is appalling. To come back and say 'no, this is robust' is truly scandalous when all the evidence clearly suggests otherwise. Show some humility, offer at least a hint of ability to be wrong. This is a whole year of school children you have just thrown under a bus (irrespective of what is written on the side).

2: For all this was a chance to benchmark yourself against your year group. Primarily, for many, to understand if you are good enough to then go on to study in university. They don't have that today and that means that many now march into tuition fees and maintenance loans without a clear understanding of whether they are cut out for it.

3: The system has been inconsistently applied across the board. Scottish grades have been reassessed so now, when wee Billie from Aberdeen applies to an English university their grades are blatantly different to how little Sammy from Reigate has been marked. Not only is it unfair, it's putting an impossible task on the Unis to sort that out now. And don't even start on international students.

In conclusion, this not a class thing - there is an anomaly that some niche classes have benefitted from - and we don't help ourselves by reverting to type to suggest so. This has been a monumental rooster up by a government that doesn't care if it is right or wrong, mainly because it is constructed of whimpering lapdogs who have been put in post for one simple recognisable trait, that of being able to agree upon whatever needs to be agreed upon if it then serves them best personally and professionally. Irrespective of abilty, as Gavin WIlliamson said, this cabinet is full of people who have been systematically promoted above their ability.

[R@M]

8 hours ago, 1of4 said:

Or the fact would say, for various reasons a student who sits an exam was unable to obtain the grades that as been estimated for them.

May be a little different to an A level exam. When I was learning to drive, my driving instructor after a number of lessons estimated that I was capable of passing a driving test. Did I pass that test? Due to me being nervous while taking the test, no I didn't.

Was this failure of my ability to be a competent driver, an over estimation by my instructor or was it due to me being unable to control my nerves. Without knowing all the variables, the facts can sometimes lead to a different conclusion.

So you are saying that due to your nerves you were not able drive correctly, but should have been given your license anyway as your instructor (whose reputation depends on passes) thought you could drive?