United Kingdom VI: Summer Lovin'

[Dogg Thang]

Don't believe the downgrading nonsense.

some straight A pupils have been marked down

I still don’t fully understand exactly what happened and you seem to know much more about it but even this last part is an absolute travesty and a life-altering one. Far from nonsense, if as you say people have been marked down who would have got better grades and that dictates college courses and, by extension, life options, that is a massive problem. The bad press is warranted even based on just the information in your own post,

[monel]

I see more and more straight A students in Gcses, I'm not saying they're easier but it confuses me. I know teachers will say kids work harder.

Anyway I read reports of a 'freedom protest' against masks and that they represent a hidden agenda . This is insane.

[cutmymilk]

I still don’t fully understand exactly what happened and you seem to know much more about it but even this last part is an absolute travesty and a life-altering one. Far from nonsense, if as you say people have been marked down who would have got better grades and that dictates college courses and, by extension, life options, that is a massive problem. The bad press is warranted even based on just the information in your own post,

Well, one of the lead BBC stories was a girl who thought she was getting all As but ended up with a couple of Bs. The teachers gave her all As in their assessment.

What I'm saying is that for this to happen, the teachers would have been too generous with lots of other grades so its kind of their fault. If I gave half my class As, it is just not plausible and the exam board would reduce some of my grades. There are exceptions and some subjects attract a higher calibre of pupil but generally results are manipulated to be similar every year.

What I meant by "downgrading nonsense" is that nothing is being downgraded. We were asked for an assessment, but were never told that this would be the awarded grade. Quite the opposite actually. What you have now is the opposite problem with lots of inflated grades being awarded, weakening the meaning of those grades. And you could say pupils who got Bs last year would have gotten As this year! This is obviously the best thing that can be done in the circumstances though, giving the benefit of doubt even if it means a massive grade spike for one year.

[Brad]

Some Oxford colleges are ignoring the grades basically. Hopefully others will follow suit. https://www.theguardian.com/educatio...espite-results

[Golgo]

It's not feasible for all universities to ignore grades and make good on all offers, because they always make many more offers than they can accommodate (in terms of teaching, space and student accommodation resource). The whole system is predicated on the fact that predicted grades always come down, and the UCAS system works to shake this all out through students' second, third, fourth and even fifth university choices. It's a dumb system (I've been director of admissions in my uni dept. for years) but there it is. The injustice this year is the way those grades have come down, not fairly through actual student performance but through an algorithm that penalizes schools in historically poorer and lower-performing districts. It's a disgraceful ****ing mess. I don't think it's the fault of teachers for giving inflated predictions. Sometimes these are intended - and work - to be motivational for the student, giving them at least a chance to be considered by their favoured first-choice university. Plus teachers are also under pressure from their managers to hit ludicrous government pass targets, which skews assessment patterns upwards.

Also, the talk in media is all about schools and government. No-one seems to be talking about the school exam boards (exams in UK are set and managed by a small number of regional exam boards in order to maintain standards and consistency nationwide, and the schools usually work under one of them). As far as I'm concerned these boards are equally as culpable and villainous as the government in this fiasco. It would have been perfectly feasible for the boards to fast-track the approval of new exams (virtual/open book), and/or alternative coursework assessments that met the same learning outcomes, and set up the online infrastructure to deliver this through widely available platforms like Learn (it's not like individual schools would have had to work out and deliver all this by themselves). This is exactly what universities up and down the country did for their exams including for their finalists who have graduated with degrees that give a reasonably fair reflection of their abilities (notice how the media is not full of university finalists protesting about unfairness). Instead the school exam boards sat on their hands and grumbled for months about the intractability of the problem.

[Dogg Thang]

Thanks for the explanation [MENTION=2492]cutmymilk[/MENTION]. I can’t help feeling there must have been better ways of dealing with this and, regardless of why or how, some kids are going to feel robbed forever unless they resit when this is all over but I understand it better now. Thanks for that.

[Neon Ignition]

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2020/08/15/hancock-axes-failing-public-health-england/

Public Health England is to be axed within the week. What are the bets that it's replacement counts COVID cases in a manner that lowers the count even further from reality?

[cutmymilk]

I don't think it's the fault of teachers for giving inflated predictions. Sometimes these are intended - and work - to be motivational for the student, giving them at least a chance to be considered by their favoured first-choice university.

This is true, however this was a separate grade that we had to discuss and enter into a web portal. The pupils weren't informed of the grade and they may have differed from targets set for the pupil before lockdown.

For A Levels, it won't make much difference - pupils will get into university owing to them having more spaces for British pupils as well as unis being more relaxed.

GCSEs are going to be more contentoius. Some pupils who have no business in A Level classes will be getting in citing the headlines, I reckon.

[prinnysquad]

Just to throw in a different point of view, the changing of grades has been postcode dependent. The North has suffered more than the other areas. I can dig out the graphic if anyone is arsed.

This statement is from the premier school in the area:

https://www.durhamjohnston.org.uk/news/2020-08-12-statement-on-a-level-results

And shows a significant drop in results DESPITE the preceding three year trend. It’s getting hammered for no discernible reason.

[cutmymilk]

In that case, it is a total disservice and the exam boards have messed up. They have applied a crude system. I need to see a full breakdown of our school now (I'm in Wales so totally different process which is meant to take prior attainment of each school into account). This won't happen until we go back though.

[prinnysquad]

Thing is, they’ve known about this crap for months. Why not release the ‘results’ two months ago? That would have given more time to sort out appeals and things.

[Brad]

Because the current government are utterly incompetent at everything. If they were a company they’d have been bankrupt dozens of times over. We need a revolution; they need forcibly removing from office.

[cutmymilk]

I don't know whats going on with it. I thought England were following Scotland and just awarding higher grades but BBC are reporting lower figures than the last 3 years average. Every school will appeal and it'll take months to sort out.

[prinnysquad]

Those figures from the local school here are atrocious. I can’t understand what ‘algorithm’ they’ve used to determine the percentages awarded, when compared to the recent trend. It’s like they’ve worked them out on the back of a fag packet. In the case of A and B grades awarded, it’s actually lower than any of the last three results, never mind lower than the average.

Just when you think Team Spaffer can’t lower the bar any further, they somehow manage to be even more useless. Then have the audacity to throw around the usual stock phrases, such as ‘robust’, to con the public into thinking they are outstanding.

[Lebowski]

Was talking to sister in law who works at a University helping secure funding she was saying the university's are stuck because pupils course funding is grade dependant, so the university's cant take lower graded pupils, its an absolute **** show

https://schoolsweek.co.uk/a-level-results-2020-b-grades-most-likely-to-be-downgraded/

B grades fell by 11% and A grades fell by 10.1 and Cs by 9% that's a massive fall and not a system that's replicating what pupils got in previous years