Scottish U-Turn On Exam Results.

[diddlydo]

This is completely insane.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-53740588

Those of us who are experienced GCE Examiners know full well that teachers' estimated grades are inflated. This year in Scotland they have effectively been handed a "Cheat's Charter". Where Scotland goes today I fear England will follow suit on Thursday.

[fiction-factory]

I took so long to type mine that some of the points crossed with ones you made while I was typing jim

[jim360]

Well, it's not impossible that the system was simply buggy, and many of the more egregious errors would have been rectified quickly on appeal. I understood that the teachers *were* asked to provide a sort of rudimentary ranking, and in that case it seems to defy logic that the incident in that letter can have occurred, as the student in that case would surely have been ranked ahead of almost everybody else in his class.

[lankeela]

University places will be more plentiful because of the lack of overseas students taking them up.

[woofgang]

i don't see a university place as a meal ticket.

[douglas9401]

Indeed, more of a bar tab.

[brainiac]

University places will be more plentiful not just because of fewer overseas students, but because of the absurd increase in the number of universities, when good polytechnics were made into third-rate universities. Now many large towns (Bath, York, Norwich, Leicester, Southampton and on and on) have two universities, and we even have the University of Chichester. Madness, and a huge devaluing of the whole notion of achieving a place at university.

Maybe with the reduction in the numbers of overseas students (many from China), some vice-chancellors will no longer be pocketing north of £300,000.

[tomus42]

They should have just gone with the teacher allocated grades in the first place.

What a ridiculous approach to artificially lower all the grades based on an assumption that teachers were bound to artificially raise them. If you decide that the teachers are going to make the decision, then you should stand by that approach and not apply some stupid algorithm to it afterwards.

[Old_Geezer]

A university place isn't a meal ticket, but a good grade in a decent subject should be a great help. And if opted instead to take a Mickey Mouse subject, well that's a few years dossing around for free, as you won't ever gain enough financially to pay back what you borrowed. Win/win for all but the taxpayer.

[Old_Geezer]

One needs to apply a sensible check on the projected grades afterwards to avoid cheating, whether intended or inadvertent. The fact is that there's no reason one year is smarter or dumber that another, so it should be easy to spot anomalies by comparison.

[Cloverjo]

I feel sorry for the bright kids from a low-performing school.

[tomus42]

We are living in ridiculous times, where you can go out for a meal, and the government will pay half the bill for you - I've done it tonight.

I don't think just trusting teachers to predict grades for the kids they've been teaching all year without interfering in the process is such a massive stretch. Anyhow, they've already admitted they screwed up, so it looks like they agree with me.

[diddlydo]

Now an 11th hour semi-U-turn by this incompetent government whereby students will be able to choose to be awarded the grade they received in their mock exams.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-53746140

[fiction-factory]

>What a ridiculous approach to artificially lower all the grades based on an assumption that teachers were bound to artificially raise them.

There are some big misunderstandings going on. All grades weren't lowered- only a few were. It's possible some were inflated. If the usual distribution over recent years has been say 15% grade A, 20% got B, 30% got C,... then it's reasonable to tweak teachers' forecasts if their forecasts come up with something noticeable more generous.
The issue is how they did it- how they decided which pupils they would have theirs reduced isn't clear.
The bit I'm puzzled by is to why it's said poorer students were worst hit. The exam boards wouldn't know how affluent they are. I think OG's answer may be near the truth

[fiction-factory]

I look forward to seeing your suggestion as to how it should be done, diddlydo. It's easy to criticise but harder to suggest anything else. Did you raise these concerns weeks ago or are you just jumping on the bandwagon?

[fiction-factory]

I'm pretty sure teachers submit predicted grades every year, certainly for GCSEs, and that these are then compared with actuals for a school in the event of any appeals.
It would be interesting to see statistics on how the predictions varied from actuals in other years- I'm pretty sure some pupils did better and some did worse in practice.

[youngmafbog]

Have to bow to you much superior knowledge on this subject didly but my own experience many moons ago does sort of support your statement.

Still, it's one year so does it really matter if more 'pass'? The only real problem I can see is that students who go on to Uni may not be able to keep up and drop out - lumbered with debt.

[youngmafbog]

Just out of interest I've seen opposition MP's criticising this (and heads) but has anyone got a better solution that would satisfy everyone?

[diddlydo]

What many people fail to realise is that the statisticians adjust raw marks/grades every single year to ensure that the percentage of students getting each particular grade is in line with an expected norm. That's why the mark required for a given grade changes from year to year even when examiners are applying the same criteria in the marking year-on-year. Therefore, when they saw that teacher-predicted grades would result in circa 40% getting an A grade, they had to do something about it.

[fiction-factory]

Exactly, diddlydo.
Maybe they should have foreseen the likely problems though

[diddlydo]

The exam boards did indeed recognise the potential problem which is why they were at pains to point out to schools how the algorithm would operate, what would be taken into account etc etc. Scotland has been completely irresponsible with its U-turn and has effectively forced the hand of England. If we had a government with guts and any sense, they would have said that the Ofqual method was the best in the circumstances.