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To Parents of 16 and 18 year olds

We appear to have a Secretary of State for Education that does not know how schools work.

He's a ****ing idiot who doesn't know how anything works...

He was a laughing stock as a Defence Sec and is continuing in the same vein.. under the patronage of a PM who he claims to have tried to prevent becoming P.M.

He's a 'principle free zone' and like the vast majority of Tory politicians, seems to think that the fact of him being in post somehow endows him with knowledge and expertise.

It doesn't.

As far as I'm concerned, this years results should err on the side of generous. That way.. the best will be unhindered and those who can't 'cut it' will be revealed in the fullness of time.. which is simply what happens anyway.. in 'normal times'.
 
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but the picture emerging from today’s results is that poorer kids and poorer schools tend to come out worse, while better off schools benefit.

It's the Tory way....

It's what millions voted for..

The Red Wall Brexiteers will be celebrating.... Oh... err...
 
EHRC appears to be intervening... It certainly seems to have been an exceptional year for private schools, despite nobody sitting any exams.

https://www.theguardian.com/educati...and-who-lost-when-a-levels-meet-the-algorithm

"The EHRC has told Ofqual it must mitigate against any “potential negative affect” of its process on ethnic minorities and disabled children, as well as those from deprived backgrounds.
“Ofqual should be clear about the impact of the algorithm used in the standardisation model and the steps taken to remove bias and take into account equality,” Hilsenrath said."

https://www.theguardian.com/educati...y-step-in-after-a-level-downgrades-in-england
 
but the picture emerging from today’s results is that poorer kids and poorer schools tend to come out worse, while better off schools benefit.
This needs proper analysis, I doubt we'll see any. I would be extremely surprised if Ofqual had 'shit school, mark them down' in their 'algorithm'.

The top grades have increased overall, but independent schools in England saw the greatest improvement on last year - up 4.7 percentage points. It seems that better off kids from better off schools are somewhat less likely to be part of the 40% of student who’ve had their grades marked down.
It would be interesting to understand how the improvement diversity occurred. I suspect it's an unfortunate side effect of Ofqual wanting to bump the results up just a bit overall. FWIW 'grades marked down' isn't a useful metric, because the awarded grades have little or nothing to do directly with teacher assessed grades, it's mostly about the ranking.
 
This needs proper analysis, I doubt we'll see any. I would be extremely surprised if Ofqual had 'shit school, mark them down' in their 'algorithm'.


It would be interesting to understand how the improvement diversity occurred. I suspect it's an unfortunate side effect of Ofqual wanting to bump the results up just a bit overall. FWIW 'grades marked down' isn't a useful metric, because the awarded grades have little or nothing to do directly with teacher assessed grades, it's mostly about the ranking.
This was posted up thread by @gavreid, but it’s worth posting again as it shows how different students are hit.
https://www.theguardian.com/educati...and-who-lost-when-a-levels-meet-the-algorithm

I have to admit that I struggled with ‘grades marked down’ wording as it seemed to vague, but it was used on the BBC so I copied it.

While I have no insight into the algorithm it is clearly using a schools past results to a greater or lesser degree. As such it’s difficult to argue with the commentator who said on late night news last night that the algorithm is measuring schools, not pupils. An LEA school will have a far greater variability of intake, whereas a selective school will obviously have less variability, which is where, I guess, the jump in top grades for Independent schools comes from, and where, if you’re a pupil from a school that has had poor results in the last few years, you will be more likely to suffer

Whatever the metric, the picture emerging is one in which poorer schools suffer more
 
This is an impossible situation; I would raise the following points-

(1) clearly anyone who has received a “fail” as a result of some form of estimate has a strong case for challenging it
This would be true regardless of the process used to estimate the grade
It is v easy to claim “it’s not fair”, and those who have been” failed” have nothing to lose by kicking up a fuss

(2) the other options offered are equally challengeable ; teacher predictions are almost invariably overgenerous; mocks are not standardised and therefore highly unreliable, and the offer of an exam in the Autumn is not really fair to students who have been away from the classroom for around 6 months

The process of standardisation which compares marks to previous years is what is used every year ( going back as long as I can remember)- so called norm-referencing- which adjusts grade boundaries to produce a fairly consistent profile of grades year on year......so this “adjustment” is nothing new....the grade a student achieves is partly dependent on how well other students in the same cohort perform. The basis of the reasoning is that with a large population, the ability profile is much more consistent from year to year than difficulty of the particular exam, or other factors, and thereby produces the fairest outcomes

The actions by the Scottish govt where students with a modicum of a case, were given the benefit of doubt, which got the govt off the hook politically, but the 14% jump in achievement simply devalues the qualification, and clearly suggests over -generosity- and what happens next year when ( hopefully ) the real exam will take place?
Will the results drop back by around 14%?

That only really matters to those students who would genuinely have achieved the the grade awarded....but this cannot be anything other than speculative under the circumstances

I hear calls for relenting, and awarding students in line with teacher predictions.....these were supposed to be confidential, so how on earth I an hearing about grades being below predictions is a mystery to me
Tutors are frequently asked to predict grades, but these” common or garden” predictions do not normally influence the assessment system, so carry very little weight

In this case predictions are being used to estimate the award, and as such form part of the assessment process, and should remain confidential

Sadly, with the best will in the world, teachers face a conflict, of interests- it is in the interests of the student, the teacher, the school, and to a certain extent the exam boards for results to be as high as possible
So ultimately this is an impossible situation not helped by a completely awful set of govt officials(Gavin Williamson et al)
What I really want to hear is from those vocal critics: Kier Starmer, and Angela Rayner what their proposals would be other than simply giving in and just giving students the inflated grades they were awarded by teachers

An impossible situation, and I feel sorry for the students who have been affected, but I really cannot see a satisfactory solution...other than over generosity...which is akin to the govt printing money....which is sometimes the least worst option

Simon
 
It's interesting how people go on about falling educational standards, useless teachers, exams too easy these days etc etc, right up to the point when their own offspring do less well than expected. Suddenly, it's an 'unfair' system, too much pressure on the kids, blah blah blah.
 
In my opinion it boils down to this:

The downgrading of a “deserving” student by the algorithm which seeks to achieve a grade profile similar to previous years, is simply the price paid for inflated estimates of grades for “undeserving” students elsewhere in the system

So those kindly teachers who were over generous to their own students effectively robbed some deserving students elsewhere
 
I'd love to see some kind of historical data on how many student's grades in the real exams are lower than they achieved in mocks. I'm working on the assumption that the vast majority of students achieve at least as well as their mocks in the real thing, in which case surely the algorithm should factor that in? It seems utterly ridiculous that someone who has achieved A consistently, got an A in mocks and was predicted A* then gets awarded a B (as has happened to someone we know). And this from a selective school as well. I know mocks are not standardised, but surely the data around real achievement vs mocks could still be used?
 
I'd love to see some kind of historical data on how many student's grades in the real exams are lower than they achieved in mocks. I'm working on the assumption that the vast majority of students achieve at least as well as their mocks in the real thing, in which case surely the algorithm should factor that in? It seems utterly ridiculous that someone who has achieved A consistently, got an A in mocks and was predicted A* then gets awarded a B (as has happened to someone we know). And this from a selective school as well. I know mocks are not standardised, but surely the data around real achievement vs mocks could still be used?

Mocks are mainly used for formative (as opposed to summative) feedback - they're totally different animals, are taken some months before the real deal, and while the syllabus is still being taught out. I would expect many students to improve, not the reverse, as you rightly say...
 
In my opinion it boils down to this:

The downgrading of a “deserving” student by the algorithm which seeks to achieve a grade profile similar to previous years, is simply the price paid for inflated estimates of grades for “undeserving” students elsewhere in the system

So those kindly teachers who were over generous to their own students effectively robbed some deserving students elsewhere

Why then have the public school marks been inflated year on year and not the reverse and mainly kids in council run comprensives been affected more?

For me this has nakedly exposed what I've long suspected - that the exam system is loaded in favour of kids from certain schools - the normalisation to make it all hunk dory is at the expense of working class kids who have no voice.
 
In my opinion it boils down to this:

The downgrading of a “deserving” student by the algorithm which seeks to achieve a grade profile similar to previous years, is simply the price paid for inflated estimates of grades for “undeserving” students elsewhere in the system

So those kindly teachers who were over generous to their own students effectively robbed some deserving students elsewhere

It seems to be accepted that the downgrading of students grades is because of teachers giving over generous predictions. But is it?

First of all any teacher who consistently over predicts will be censured. But more important the algorithm is primarily based on the past results of schools, not on individual predicted grades.

There was a discussion about this algorithm on the BBC News at lunchtime and iirc the algorithm operates in 3 stages, first it looks at the past record of school in that subject and then it tries to match the range of grades this year, with the range of grades in the past

Only then do predictions come into play, but not as a grade, only as a ranking, so that if E was at the bottom of the range in previous years, the bottom grade this year has to also be an E

So as I understand it, a pupil could theoretically be set for an A grade, but if everyone else in their class was predicted an A*, they would have to get the E.

The algorithm does not consider current data, it only produces data that reflects the past

The presenter, Mark Mardell, said, "isn't that an inherent bias towards the status quo, you could say an algorithm says that the last two out of three prime ministers went to Eton so that should be what happens in the future"

This monumental injustice is not down to teachers, its down the data that this government chooses to look at.

(Frankly, it would probably be more accurate if teacher predictions were used instead of this algorithm. It would certainly be fairer.)
 
Email received this morning from A's school: "The media has reported that nationally 36% of grades have been decreased from the initial teacher estimates. Within [A's school] we have found that the proportion of grades to be decreased is significantly higher than this." The letter went on to say that there had been 80 appeals already out of a total of 150 in the year group.

In my admittedly somewhat limited sample of two, performance in exams has been at least as good and often better than mocks. Especially mocks held first week back after bleedin Xmas.
 
This monumental injustice is not down to teachers, its down the data that this government chooses to look at.

As I opened this thread with - just what is the Government doing interfering with exam assessment in the first place, why is this accepted at all by international standards?
 
Applying an algorithm to grade something that never happened just seems an ultimately flawed concept. It just feels pointless. They should provide dual results - the "computer said no" ones, and the "teacher who knows the student inside out" ones side by side, and whoever needs to use these results as a point of reference in the future can decide which to rely on. (And we'll just ignore the possibility of inflated predictions to make the teachers look good)
 
Applying an algorithm to grade something that never happened just seems an ultimately flawed concept. It just feels pointless. They should provide dual results - the "computer said no" ones, and the "teacher who knows the student inside out" ones side by side, and whoever needs to use these results as a point of reference in the future can decide which to rely on. (And we'll just ignore the possibility of inflated predictions to make the teachers look good)

I think there's still a lot to play for - the students mustn't kowtow
 
This is an impossible situation; I would raise the following points-

(1) clearly anyone who has received a “fail” as a result of some form of estimate has a strong case for challenging it
This would be true regardless of the process used to estimate the grade
It is v easy to claim “it’s not fair”, and those who have been” failed” have nothing to lose by kicking up a fuss

(2) the other options offered are equally challengeable ; teacher predictions are almost invariably overgenerous; mocks are not standardised and therefore highly unreliable, and the offer of an exam in the Autumn is not really fair to students who have been away from the classroom for around 6 months

The process of standardisation which compares marks to previous years is what is used every year ( going back as long as I can remember)- so called norm-referencing- which adjusts grade boundaries to produce a fairly consistent profile of grades year on year......so this “adjustment” is nothing new....the grade a student achieves is partly dependent on how well other students in the same cohort perform. The basis of the reasoning is that with a large population, the ability profile is much more consistent from year to year than difficulty of the particular exam, or other factors, and thereby produces the fairest outcomes

The actions by the Scottish govt where students with a modicum of a case, were given the benefit of doubt, which got the govt off the hook politically, but the 14% jump in achievement simply devalues the qualification, and clearly suggests over -generosity- and what happens next year when ( hopefully ) the real exam will take place?
Will the results drop back by around 14%?

That only really matters to those students who would genuinely have achieved the the grade awarded....but this cannot be anything other than speculative under the circumstances

I hear calls for relenting, and awarding students in line with teacher predictions.....these were supposed to be confidential, so how on earth I an hearing about grades being below predictions is a mystery to me
Tutors are frequently asked to predict grades, but these” common or garden” predictions do not normally influence the assessment system, so carry very little weight

In this case predictions are being used to estimate the award, and as such form part of the assessment process, and should remain confidential

Sadly, with the best will in the world, teachers face a conflict, of interests- it is in the interests of the student, the teacher, the school, and to a certain extent the exam boards for results to be as high as possible
So ultimately this is an impossible situation not helped by a completely awful set of govt officials(Gavin Williamson et al)
What I really want to hear is from those vocal critics: Kier Starmer, and Angela Rayner what their proposals would be other than simply giving in and just giving students the inflated grades they were awarded by teachers

An impossible situation, and I feel sorry for the students who have been affected, but I really cannot see a satisfactory solution...other than over generosity...which is akin to the govt printing money....which is sometimes the least worst option

Simon

This is the most sense I’ve heard in a long time - thank you Simon. In an impossible situation what is a fair system? The Labour Party have no alternative except to make platitudes about ‘fairness’ to grab some voters from disillusioned youngsters. Absolutely no genuine alternative apart from use the teachers assessments. If that happens I for one (As an employer ) will look sceptically at the qualifications from this year’s cohort - although of course I look at other evidence of skills and achievements. Where’s the fairness in this year’s A level cohort getting inflated results based on teacher assessments? Is that fair to their peers who studied the previous couple of years ? Fairness isn’t only about those who are upset today!

I’d like to see five years worth of data comparing teacher (over) assessments compared to real results in their schools. Let’s see whether this is more reliable than the algorithm. The algorithm is flawed but if 40% of teachers over predict then they must take a large part of the blame. If they were reliable we wouldn’t need an algorithm

As for the suggestion that teachers could be censured - really? When has that happened then? I have family who teach in secondary education so I have no axe to grind with the profession per se but in what industry would you be allowed to over inflate achievements years on the trot and keep your job?

I agree this has been a fiasco and as someone who is first generation university, working class into a grammar school I very much feel for the Working class high achievers. They are being disproportionately affected and potentially without the support mechanisms or options given to others. Missing out on a top university place that you won’t get back (even if you successfully appeal) will be genuinely heartbreaking. Shame on those universities who claim to be taking more working class students but won’t keep back some of their places. That could have put some of this right.

But unfortunately I still feel teachers should do less bleating and accept that their persistent over predictions have made their judgements more unreliable than the algorithm.
 


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