The Exam Situation

Working class state schools look like they are hit the hardest surprise surprise. There is such snobbery in parts of the education system and it is very negative for the country. It sounds awful to say it but the exam boards maybe wary of downgrading Private schools, because of the backlash from those schools and their supporters, so its less stress for them to downgrade state schools, where they are faced with having to downgrade some results.

I believe these "decision grade makers" have never seen the work they are grading, as the example from English Martyrs school shows. I believe they are basing it on historical records of past grades. Please tell me if I am wrong. I assume mock exam work is marked by own teacher and not kept for long. Ref Lefty's example I would love to know what logic was used to change someone's grade from C to U, based on historic exam results, it defies my lively imagination.

Many assume the young people at private schools are more intelligent, which is generally not true. Intelligence is broadly spread across all society and the differences are not as big as people would have let you believe. The young people at private schools generally benefit results wise from more attention from teachers (smaller classes), other students who are focused, higher expectations (from family and school), in many cases much better resources both in school and at home. There are some examples too of struggling/drifting teachers not been asked to leave in State schools, its a tough job in many State schools to do well over a long period, and some teachers perform near miracles.
 
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I think there's a misconception about standard of quality of teaching in private school vs state school, although having only been through one system I obviously can't provide a comparison. My own experience is that private schools offer more opportunities to pupils, most of which are not classroom based. Mostly it's the variety of sports on offer and the standard of facilities available. For example, Adam Peaty used the swimming facilities at my former school in the 5 years before his 2016 Olympic success. I don't imagine many state schools have that type of facility. Derbyshire CCC regularly trained there and we were often in the nets with them. There are indoor and outdoor tennis courts, hockey pitches, athletics tracks and so on. I don't think the state system can possibly compete such is the way each system is funded.
 
Artie Fufkin said:
I think there's a misconception about standard of quality of teaching in private school vs state school, although having only been through one system I obviously can't provide a comparison. My own experience is that private schools offer more opportunities to pupils, most of which are not classroom based. Mostly it's the variety of sports on offer and the standard of facilities available. For example, Adam Peaty used the swimming facilities at my former school in the 5 years before his 2016 Olympic success. I don't imagine many state schools have that type of facility. Derbyshire CCC regularly trained there and we were often in the nets with them. There are indoor and outdoor tennis courts, hockey pitches, athletics tracks and so on. I don't think the state system can possibly compete such is the way each system is funded.
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Yes, we had 30 kids on 1 tennis court at my school - no future Wimbledon champions there
 
If I was a teacher and I had a student who was in the borderline A/B bracket, I'm sure I would have predicted an A this year. How can you not err on the positive for a student? I can also see how a school or teacher that needs to improve would consciously or unconsciously overestimate slightly.

So I can see how the exam boards would have to downgrade a lot of the predicted grades.

However, how have they done this? If you were borderline in all three A levels it seems a bit harsh to have been downgraded in all three. If you had a school or teacher that are usually pretty accurate with their predicted grades, has that really been properly taken into account?

And why is there such a difference between the private schools and sixth forms? It seems to me these pupils were already benefiting from better teachers, facilities and class size. I don't see why they should benefit even further from some quirk in an algorithm.
 
Artie Fufkin said:
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The education system is absolutely f***ed.

Why should public (private) schools exist?

They just perpetuate the status quo, snaffle loads of great teachers and soak up money that could be used for the greater good.

At the very least there should be a trade off, for example if it's 10k per term to send a child there then the parents should have to pay the equal amount to HMRC so at least the country is receiving some benefit (even if this money would end up back in the pockets of the private school brigade under the current government).

This is no means a criticism of children within the private school system, they obviously deserve a great education, as do all children.
 
Lefty said:
If I was a teacher and I had a student who was in the borderline A/B bracket, I'm sure I would have predicted an A this year. How can you not err on the positive for a student? I can also see how a school or teacher that needs to improve would consciously or unconsciously overestimate slightly.

So I can see how the exam boards would have to downgrade a lot of the predicted grades.
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I think this is what has caused the problem and why private schools haven't been affected as much. Many teachers have inflated grades on any border cases and chosen the higher grade. When this is aggregated up to a whole school this makes a significant difference which has then been adjusted downwards for everyone in the school. I don't know why some have been dropped by 2 or 3 grades unless they have assessed individual subjects nationally so a school that has been too generous coupled with a subject that has been too generous nationally might have been double hit? The problem is that the students that deserved those higher grades get the same treatment as the ones that don't. If teachers had been more accurate with their marking then fewer people will have had their grades adjusted.

Lefty said:
And why is there such a difference between the private schools and sixth forms? It seems to me these pupils were already benefiting from better teachers, facilities and class size. I don't see why they should benefit even further from some quirk in an algorithm.
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Private schools haven't had to be overly generous with their grades. They are usually smaller so fewer children to skew their figures and a slight increase is more plausible when they are usually high anyway so the difference is much less noticeable.


I don't think there was a good way of doing it, I've certainly not heard of any solutions aside from just sitting the exams in the first place. Mock exams probably shouldn't be used because they aren't standardised tests. Some schools haven't covered all the topics when they sit them, some downgrade deliberately to use as a kick up the backside etc. Some over-mark because the predicted grades can then be used for Uni applications and it makes the school look better if more people get into Oxbridge etc. We didn't do mocks at A-Level, we had exams in January and May at AS and A Level over 2 years and I think it was 25% of your grade for each sitting. That system would have been far better than the all or nothing system at the end they currently use because the margin for error was much smaller. I got the grades I expected after my final exams because I would have had to do terribly or incredibly well to make enough of a difference to move up or down.

It was clear that the method they chose wasn't correct because grades were significantly up everywhere. Downgrading people that don't deserve it is harsh but over-grading people is also harsh on the people that did achieve higher grades because it dilutes their achievements. I think the fact that universities won't be accepting foreign students means that they ill accept lower grades than usual which will offset some of the disappointment. Hopefully employers and universities will take this into account and people don't suffer in their careers because of it. If they get into uni then the grade you get there tends to trump everything that has come before it anyway.

Ideally there would be a better application process for universities anyway. They waste so much time applying for stuff using predicted grades and it gets in the way of studies. Bring the exams forward, get results back sooner and use actual grades to apply. People won't stress so much about missing out on a specific uni and course if they never have it in the first place to be taken away from them.
 
boromike85 said:
I think this is what has caused the problem and why private schools haven't been affected as much. Many teachers have inflated grades on any border cases and chosen the higher grade. When this is aggregated up to a whole school this makes a significant difference which has then been adjusted downwards for everyone in the school. I don't know why some have been dropped by 2 or 3 grades unless they have assessed individual subjects nationally so a school that has been too generous coupled with a subject that has been too generous nationally might have been double hit? The problem is that the students that deserved those higher grades get the same treatment as the ones that don't. If teachers had been more accurate with their marking then fewer people will have had their grades adjusted.



Private schools haven't had to be overly generous with their grades. They are usually smaller so fewer children to skew their figures and a slight increase is more plausible when they are usually high anyway so the difference is much less noticeable.


I don't think there was a good way of doing it, I've certainly not heard of any solutions aside from just sitting the exams in the first place. Mock exams probably shouldn't be used because they aren't standardised tests. Some schools haven't covered all the topics when they sit them, some downgrade deliberately to use as a kick up the backside etc. Some over-mark because the predicted grades can then be used for Uni applications and it makes the school look better if more people get into Oxbridge etc. We didn't do mocks at A-Level, we had exams in January and May at AS and A Level over 2 years and I think it was 25% of your grade for each sitting. That system would have been far better than the all or nothing system at the end they currently use because the margin for error was much smaller. I got the grades I expected after my final exams because I would have had to do terribly or incredibly well to make enough of a difference to move up or down.

It was clear that the method they chose wasn't correct because grades were significantly up everywhere. Downgrading people that don't deserve it is harsh but over-grading people is also harsh on the people that did achieve higher grades because it dilutes their achievements. I think the fact that universities won't be accepting foreign students means that they ill accept lower grades than usual which will offset some of the disappointment. Hopefully employers and universities will take this into account and people don't suffer in their careers because of it. If they get into uni then the grade you get there tends to trump everything that has come before it anyway.

Ideally there would be a better application process for universities anyway. They waste so much time applying for stuff using predicted grades and it gets in the way of studies. Bring the exams forward, get results back sooner and use actual grades to apply. People won't stress so much about missing out on a specific uni and course if they never have it in the first place to be taken away from them.
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Who let YOU back in??

You should stick to this sort of thing, turns out you can actually talk a lot of sense instead of just the rubbish you spout on politics. ;)
 
Lefty said:
Who let YOU back in??

You should stick to this sort of thing, turns out you can actually talk a lot of sense instead of just the rubbish you spout on politics. ;)
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I was never out. I am restricted, not banned. Everything is slowed to a snails pace so I wouldn't be able to keep up in an active conversation so it's not worth the effort.
 
boromike85 said:
I think this is what has caused the problem and why private schools haven't been affected as much. Many teachers have inflated grades on any border cases and chosen the higher grade. When this is aggregated up to a whole school this makes a significant difference which has then been adjusted downwards for everyone in the school. I don't know why some have been dropped by 2 or 3 grades unless they have assessed individual subjects nationally so a school that has been too generous coupled with a subject that has been too generous nationally might have been double hit? The problem is that the students that deserved those higher grades get the same treatment as the ones that don't. If teachers had been more accurate with their marking then fewer people will have had their grades adjusted.



Private schools haven't had to be overly generous with their grades. They are usually smaller so fewer children to skew their figures and a slight increase is more plausible when they are usually high anyway so the difference is much less noticeable.


I don't think there was a good way of doing it, I've certainly not heard of any solutions aside from just sitting the exams in the first place. Mock exams probably shouldn't be used because they aren't standardised tests. Some schools haven't covered all the topics when they sit them, some downgrade deliberately to use as a kick up the backside etc. Some over-mark because the predicted grades can then be used for Uni applications and it makes the school look better if more people get into Oxbridge etc. We didn't do mocks at A-Level, we had exams in January and May at AS and A Level over 2 years and I think it was 25% of your grade for each sitting. That system would have been far better than the all or nothing system at the end they currently use because the margin for error was much smaller. I got the grades I expected after my final exams because I would have had to do terribly or incredibly well to make enough of a difference to move up or down.

It was clear that the method they chose wasn't correct because grades were significantly up everywhere. Downgrading people that don't deserve it is harsh but over-grading people is also harsh on the people that did achieve higher grades because it dilutes their achievements. I think the fact that universities won't be accepting foreign students means that they ill accept lower grades than usual which will offset some of the disappointment. Hopefully employers and universities will take this into account and people don't suffer in their careers because of it. If they get into uni then the grade you get there tends to trump everything that has come before it anyway.

Ideally there would be a better application process for universities anyway. They waste so much time applying for stuff using predicted grades and it gets in the way of studies. Bring the exams forward, get results back sooner and use actual grades to apply. People won't stress so much about missing out on a specific uni and course if they never have it in the first place to be taken away from them.
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So you're blaming the teachers? I mean really?!
 
Primus84 said:
So you're blaming the teachers? I mean really?!
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No. I'm not blaming anyone. I am sure that they did what they did with good intentions without knowing how the data they provide would be used. However, teachers have over-marked, was it 12% nationally I read, and that has had an impact. E.g. If they have two almost identical students who are sitting on the border of an A and a B. The teacher marks them both as an A had they sat exams one of them gets an A and one gets a B. For the system to work the teacher should know which one was going to get an A and which would get a B and mark them accordingly but in reality it is impossible to know and so they both are given As. When that happens at every boundary it means grades are over-inflated and because the exam body don't have any data for which ones are right and which are wrong they have to downgrade everyone equally.
 
Prime Minister Boris Johnson said the results were a "robust set of grades".

What does that statement even mean?? It is meaningless and does nothing to dampen the flames.....
 
boromike85 said:
No. I'm not blaming anyone. I am sure that they did what they did with good intentions without knowing how the data they provide would be used. However, teachers have over-marked, was it 12% nationally I read, and that has had an impact. E.g. If they have two almost identical students who are sitting on the border of an A and a B. The teacher marks them both as an A had they sat exams one of them gets an A and one gets a B. For the system to work the teacher should know which one was going to get an A and which would get a B and mark them accordingly but in reality it is impossible to know and so they both are given As. When that happens at every boundary it means grades are over-inflated and because the exam body don't have any data for which ones are right and which are wrong they have to downgrade everyone equally.
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Or perhaps teacher predictions are accurate but don’t fit into the bell curves that are used to assign grades? Maybe it’s the fixed system, the system moves the goal posts each year, after students have completed exams, that is broken and needs changing?
 
Concrete Dreams said:
Or perhaps teacher predictions are accurate but don’t fit into the bell curves that are used to assign grades? Maybe it’s the fixed system, the system moves the goal posts each year, after students have completed exams, that is broken and needs changing?
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Statistically, private schools more accurately predict A level grades than schools in more deprived areas . . . . except in the prediction of A / A* students where schools in deprived areas get more accurate predictions. I hope the algorithm doesn't penalise these good performing kids.
 
I taught some students from the wealthy parts of the Middle East and they couldn't understand why you couldn't just buy a qualification by just doing the course. Like buying a pint of milk. They seem confident they could start any University course they liked in the UK if they paid enough. When I talked about A level grades for universities they thought I was very naive.

Maybe I am, if you have a roughly average intelligence level, just pay your top private school fees, do the set work and you get access to a "Russell Group" University. And if you are quite bright access to Oxbridge.

I visited part of Malvern School and was astounded by the facilities compared with my old secondary school was like comparing the Riverside with a Northern League ground. I have also completed an one year education diploma at Oxford University and visited their education department for the day. The resources for the department were bigger than the whole of Teesside Polytechnic resources (all departments) were when I was there in the 1980s.
 
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