A Level Screw Up

[Whorty]

Our experience with state schools over covid has been very much the incompetence/gone on holiday for 6 months variaty. So my views may be more negative than most. No contact with a teacher at all in that time, just an email on a Monday with a list of worksheets to do.

So, because the teachers in state schools have been crap, we should then penalise the kids? Hardly seems fair does it?

[northernladuk]

Sorry but I've completely missed the whole A level situation. What's happened? All marked too low or too high?

I don't think they can win here at all. The little experience I've had with is wiuth my two step kids and some of their mates. In my case my eldest who was tipped for at least a few A*'s based on his year ended up screwing it up because he was too lazy to revise and my youngest who was expected to come out average smashed his exams because he put the work in. In my experience the results were nothing like the expected grades. Same with a couple of their friends. They were never going to get it right using any kind of 'expected' status IMO.

It would be interesting to know if they used past performance of expected and actual to see if there was some trend they could apply. The output would be different and upset this years people but it would be based on a historical data that, say, on average people dropped a level from their expected over the last 5 years.

[BlueSharp]

So, because the teachers in state schools have been crap, we should then penalise the kids? Hardly seems fair does it?

But crap teaching will cause a drop in grades even without lock down - so yes it is fair, the anger should be directed at the crap teachers who failed their students.

[BABABlackSheep]

I have seen multiple examples of SueEllen's example and worse. The worst is the A*A*A which went to CDD - and the appeal means she is waiting a year for Uni as the course is now full of private school students who kept their A's because cohorts of less than 6 went by teacher grading.

As for past performance of schools being consistent - any evidence to back up that tulip...

A*A*A went to CDD, ok..

What results in their mocks? I assume CDD or worse, else they can use mocks.. right?

Oh, hang on, apparently some schools don’t do mocks. Impressive then teachers can predict A*A*A without A’Level exam conditions.

Waiting for a better solution from someone, apart from the 30% uplift certain schools applied to their kids.

Past performance. My nearest Private School is Bolton School.. so lets use that..

Here’s the past 11 years of girl’s A’level results A*-B %wise..

83.7
83.8
78.4
76.6
72.4
78.8
75.9
82.9
79.4
81.6
81.9

The average of these is 79.6%
The median of these is 79.4

Boys school..last 9 years..same grades

Average 75.7
Median 75.6

So a variance of 0.2 and 0.1 between median and average.

You might want to reconsider what you wrote.

[Uncle Albert]

A*A*A went to CDD, ok..

What results in their mocks? I assume CDD or worse, else they can use mocks.. right?

Oh, hang on, apparently some schools don’t do mocks. Impressive then teachers can predict A*A*A without A’Level exam conditions.

Waiting for a better solution from someone, apart from the 30% uplift certain schools applied to their kids.

Past performance. My nearest Private School is Bolton School.. so lets use that..

Here’s the past 11 years of girl’s A’level results A*-B %wise..

83.7
83.8
78.4
76.6
72.4
78.8
75.9
82.9
79.4
81.6
81.9

The average of these is 79.6%
The median of these is 79.4

Boys school..last 9 years..same grades

Average 75.7
Median 75.6

So a variance of 0.2 and 0.1 between median and average.

You might want to reconsider what you wrote.

I don't think it's fair to use a private school as evidence that grades don't vary much. State schools have much wider range of abilities in the same cohort.

[BABABlackSheep]

I don't think it's fair to use a private school as evidence that grades don't vary much. State schools have much wider range of abilities in the same cohort.

You may well be right, but unless there’s been a big change, the results will average themselves out I’m sure.

I was responding to the past performance is tulip statement, so I checked.

[minestrone]

The reality is the impact of the moderation is exactly equal to the overmarking. And if the marks that teachers handed out had pretty much matched previous distributions then the small groups that got shafted would have been diminished.

As teachers like to say it is the actions of a few that ruin it for everyone,

[eek]

The reality is the impact of the moderation is exactly equal to the overmarking. And if the marks that teachers handed out had pretty much matched previous distributions then the small groups that got shafted would have been diminished.

As teachers like to say it is the actions of a few that ruin it for everyone,

Nope the reality is:-

Cohort less than 6 -> Teacher grades
Cohort greater than 15 -> rankings matched to that school's results from last years
Cohort 6 to 15 -> not a clue.

Which is why some areas with large sixth forms have done scarily bad and private schools now have A*s across the board.

The B grade in Maths with A* in Further Maths is the greatest example I saw today - in theory possible, in reality less than 1% chance of occurring.

[minestrone]

I'm going to guess marks rarely jump by 3 or 4% between years.

Schools will take time to move up and down league tables.

[SueEllen]

Sorry but I've completely missed the whole A level situation. What's happened? All marked too low or too high?

Due to A levels not being sat this year the OFQUAL used a model to guessitmate the grades of A level students and level 3 BTech students plus next week GCSE and level 2 BTech students in England, Wales and Northern Ireland.

For A levels teachers ranked all the students in their subject, they also used SPSS which gives a prediction of an individual child's grade from Key Stage 2 to A levels, and how the individual student worked on the course. Some schools and other establishments do some form of continuous assessment to help predict students grades including exams though out the year, while others don't.

However the model the government used is screwed up as it uses:
1. Only the last 3 years results in that educatonal establishment ,
2. If the education establishment has less than 15 students entered for the exam then the teachers assessment is used.

As a result it downgraded 40% of students.

This means those educated in the state system particularly in poorer areas where 6th Forms enter more than 15 students results have been down graded. Those educated in independent schools have seen grades improve by just over 4%.

In Wales the issues with the model have been rectified as they will use the students AS level results if the education establishment appeals.

In England and Northern Ireland as students don't do AS levels then a "valid" mock will be used if the education establishment appeals.

Many BTech students have not received their results.

If your child is educated at home they will not have received any result.