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Oxford has been generous sticking to their post-interview offers but it does beg the question of who did they make the offers to? How Eton evolves into Merton.
Kelvin, your sort of right, it's not the fact they are independent schools, it's the fact that for most of their subjects they don't enter enough candidates to build up useful statistical data, so they just used the centre assessed grades which were generally inflated across the board..
Not all private schools have seen grade inflation, same true for state grammar schools, I know of at least 2 well performing grammar schools whose results are way down from where they normally are. Also bear in mind a lot of private schools do CAIE exams which state schools aren't allowed to do, apples and pears, the CAIE exams are known to be easier and that exam board is outside of Ofqual, their exam moderation seems to have been even more mental than Ofqual.
Ofqual have not withdrawn the whole appeals process, just the guidance around what constituted a mock exam (which actually looked quite reasonable).
Personally I feel sorry for everyone involved, including Ofqual, the government has done it's usual, make an arbitrary decision on the fly, leave others to pick up the pieces and the politically interfere at the last moment when they don't like the result. The only good thing to come out of this is they'll never cancel exams again.
Expecting the GCSE results to be delayed now, the fall out from them will be even bigger.
One thing is certain, a group of statisticians will be having a pretty hard weekend running code on the effects of alternative appeals processes.
I still think my suggestion may have proved more reliable.
I noted that only 0.3% of exams dropped three grades from predicted. I can easily believe that this is aligned with annual data. But 0.3% of 750k sittings is 2250 results. If independent distributed, the probability of at least one of three being downgraded is 1-0.997^3 which is 0.89%. Hence about 2500 pupils will have received at least one three-grade drop. Some two drops and some all three.
Algorithms are poor at dealing with outliers because the assumptions at the extremes tend to be poorly known or violated. Social media is ALL about extremes.
Social media is ALL about extremes.
Turns out that is a very unpopular opinion to hold just now. Still, the abuse I got for trying to put some info and perspective on what has undoubtedly been a shitshow for those unfortunately affected by it has led to me finally coming off FB, so there's a silver lining to the cloud.
I don’t do FB and Twitter for anything other than a few photos. But I do do perspective and read source material.
And yes I agree it is terrible for some. My nephew has been downgraded from a distinction in one of his subjects to a U.
My nephew has been downgraded from a distinction in one of his subjects to a U.
I was reading similar horror stories in yesterday's Guardian. How is that even possible? It shows just how catastrophically wrong they've got this.
My own 16-year-old daughter is now ridiculously anxious about her GCSE results next Thursday. Her projected grades and her mocks results were great, but with examples like this of such bizarre anomalies, its no wonder she's so worried.
What I find unforgivable about this utter shambles is that nobody responsible for this total shambles seems to care about both the short-term and long-term effects of this on so many young people
Its a disgrace
look into who developed and applied the algorithm and surrounding rules, and how they are linked to Gove& Cummings
Deliberately tough to find out. Those involved had to sign an NDA and those that refused to do so were excluded from the process. Which in itself obviously stinks - why does this algorithm need to be secret?
My own 16-year-old daughter is now ridiculously anxious about her GCSE results next Thursday. Her projected grades and her mocks results were great, but with examples like this of such bizarre anomalies, its no wonder she’s so worried.
The whisper is that 97% of next Thursday's grades will be affected by the algorithm - much higher than for A Levels. The clusterfun looks set to continue and escalate.
For people without capital, education is almost the only route to improve your lot and do something you're interested in, or used to be. I cannot imagine the fury of these students, parents, teachers. Maybe it's a strategy that the state school students are to 'study out to help out' in the new universities, like Mr Cleverly at Thames Valley.
why does this algorithm need to be secret?
It isn’t. Ofqual published a 300 page interim report on the methodology and performance. The interesting point is that it is “interim”. Maybe they plan an update based on the errr feedback.
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/awarding-gcse-as-a-levels-in-summer-2020-interim-report
I’ve read it. Spare a thought for the poor statisticians charged with producing something that sounds simple but is technically challenging. Especially as I have said when it comes to outliers in large populations.
Prediction to within one grade is 1
Actually very good. Better than teacher performance in fact. The mistake was not to adopt this as the mantra rather than retain absolutes for decision making. Hence passing the problem onto universities.
Which looks like it’s going to happen anyway.
So if i understand right, it's a bit like taking the results of the last however many 100m world championships and working out what the average time would be for 1st, 2nd, 3rd, etc. Then run the race and see who comes in each position, and then assign them the time for that. No need to time it any longer.
It does mean that Usain Bolt's no longer the fastest man in the world, because stats say 100m runners can't run that fast. Seems fair.
Then run the race and see who comes in each position, and then assign them the time for that. No need to time it any longer.
Not quite - The race would not be run and everyone would binge watch netflix in the athlete's village. Instead, David Coleman would have been asked to decide the rank order he thought they would have come in the race and then the algorithm would have assigned them a time for their predicted position. If last year one of the athletes had snapped his hamstring and limped over the line 10 minutes after the penultimate placed athlete (a la Derek Redmond) one of this years athletes would also be given a time of 10min 10secs too - to make it fair for everyone.
Instead, David Coleman would have been asked to decide the rank order
Quite extraordinary!
why does this algorithm need to be secret?
It isn’t. Ofqual published a 300 page interim report on the methodology and performance. The interesting point is that it is “interim”. Maybe they plan an update based on the errr feedback.
Absolutely correct. Apologies. I got caught up in the (commentaries on) reports of groups being denied participation in its development due to refusal to sign an NDA.
For the 100m, every country would provide a predicted time for their athletes. All the times would be ranked and then adjusted to match their previous country’s performance. Never won a silver medal In the past? Too bad, your country will do poorly due to its historic performance. Jamaica has had a good sprinting team, but an exceptional athlete will be downgraded. USA might fare better
Of course if your from that (private) sprinting nation, the Faroe Islands, well there are no previous predictions, so if you said 8.99 was your time, congratulations! You just won gold.
it’s not the fact they are independent schools
Yes it is. Oh, you mean that’s not the reason given? Right you are. I understand (just about) how the algorithm works… I’m suggesting that the big f obvious flaw that it downgrades state school pupils and not private school pupils should have meant that it was not fit for purpose, and another methodology sought. Unless those involved, and those who gave them the task, didn’t care, or worse, were content with, baking that unfairness into the system.
Kelvin, I don't think that's right at all, the current government don't give a monkey's about anyone. I also think you're giving them far too much credit to think they even assesed the impact of the grading process, yet alone thinking, hey that works, it gives private school kids the advantage.
TiReds post above explains what happens at the bottom of the grading structure. I've explained what's happened at the top, small schools, CAG used rather than algorithm, different exam board to state schools. If you want to go all reactionary have a go at the fact the exams open to private schools (which have a reputation for being easier) are outside of Ofqual and not available to state schools.
Isn't it about time Gavin Williamson (aka Private Pike) threatened an exam board with a pint-sized aircraft carrier or something?
If you want to go all reactionary
The bias against state schools can happen more than once, be it deliberate or uncaring.
The waters are being tested for a Uturn…
https://twitter.com/mattuthompson/status/1295263485274750977?s=21
When IDS is proposing a human solution, we really have gone down a rabbit hole.
The idea of Iain Duncan Smith doing something 'in a human way' is a bit worrying. I presume he means internment camps.
It's a spelling mistake. He means humane. He want students from disadvantaged communities 'treated' in a humane way. Allowing anaesthetic before they are sterilised, or something like that.
So Scotland are using teacher assigned grades, and now Northern Ireland. Leaving England once again to be the guinea pigs in Cummings grand experiment of 'data-led' government. When are these people going to understand that data, algorithms, technology and clever people with their statistical models can not solve every problem? I see this stuff at work all the time. Bosses who know bugger all asking if we can use AI or 'Machine Learning' to solve problems which are completely unsuited to it, and then channeling the lion's share of R&D money to people who are only too glad to spend it in the belief that everything can be automated. It can't, and tragically the people who are now finding that out are 18 and 16 year old kids who are seeing their dreams and future plans torn to shreds. Never in my life have I seen a single government policy/action cause such widespread distress and outrage. Boris is done after this, this is his poll tax.
This is what happens when you champion statistics over people's lives.
look into who developed and applied the algorithm and surrounding rules, and how they are linked to Gove& Cummings
Speaking of Cummings ...
Dazh has it bang on. Moderating involves comparing the work of pupils at different schools/colleges given the same mark/grade, to ensure consistency. What has happened is not moderation, it is capping results to fit an expected distribution of results nationwide… a capping that just happens to not be as harshly applied to the pupils at schools used by the shower in charge of our country right now.
Tories have just given all the private school kids a nice little boost to their futures, at the expense of everyone else.
A ****-you to us all.
This isn't data led government, it's make something up on the fly, leave it to someone else to try and come up with a workable solution, then criticise the solution, demand a different outcome and expect the numbers to back it up. Whats worse is the decisions are now being driven by emotion, should've got the algorithms sorted, issued the results to schools in advance (using NDAs), get real world feedback and fine tune the algorithms. Reduce the number of outliers (there will always be some, there are when exams are run, it's not a totally fair system either).
For many the U-turns are too late, universities have an admission cap inn place this year, by the time grades have been appealed and approved many of the sought after courses will be filled.
U turn upcoming at 4pm?
Indeed. Any sightings of a crestfallen Frank Spencer trying to style out his u-turn?
And...yes, it's a screeching U-turn; what took them so long?
Oh, they had to wait until it was confirmed that the pupils had lost their places at their first and second choice universities.
So where does that leave the students that were moved up by a grade. As my son was given a C but teachers predicted a D.
So where does that leave the students that were moved up by a grade. As my son was given a C but teachers predicted a D.
He will get a C - statement says better of two systems applies.
statement says better of two systems applies
Good move.
Glad I’m not involved in Uni admissions for this year. Now, will the cap on numbers be removed/raised?
So the plebs get their assessed grades, and the fee-payers get to keep their upgrades...
And schools that played strictly by the rules and pre-applied a 3 year trend to their own submissions will lose out relatively, while the chancers get their kids a nice boost.
So not ideal, but there was really no other way.
As usual though, dealt with badly. Just an announcement about grades. No advice for universities etc. (although there's a strong whisper the cap on places will be scrapped). More confusion to come but at least we've avoided GCSEs being another huge shitshow on Thursday.
So not ideal, but there was really no other way.
Least worst way out of this mess.
You really think the GCSE results will be out on Thursday? A last minute U turn doesn't inspire confidence in getting results out on time this week (like I had any confidence in this approach left...)
Can't see an issue as all the information is already in the system and they just need to pull out a slightly different set of numbers.
With the current lot running the show though, who knows?
Cap on uni places now officially removed too.
Is Boris still on his holidays?
Will williamson (be encouraged to) resign or will the chinless wonder say 'sorry' again and then continue blundering on?
Is Boris still on his holidays?
Someone's tweeted from the official PM account about all this, but odds on it wasn't actually him (it's coherent for a start).
Cap on uni places now officially removed too.
The consequences of this is huge!
Having spent all day on the phone to stressed/worried students (and some angry parents) I am planning my email to my MP and thinking about invoicing Gavin Williams for my time.
It won't end today though, once the CAGs go out we'll field all the complaints about students whose CAG was lower than they wanted.
At least it now feels like the two weeks I spent writing the CAG justification and then forming and moderating my courses CAGs was worthwhile!
This is what happens when you champion statistics over people’s lives.
Gavin Williamson is what happens when you champion adherence to a fundamentally stupid project over competence to hold office.
See also Chris Fayling, Little Liam Fox, Dominic Raaaaaaaaab, Little Matty Handjob, Liz 'The Truss' Truss etc.
Oven-ready **** up.
This is what happens when you champion statistics over people’s lives.
It’s what happens when your objective is to avoid grade inflation above all else. That’s a political decision. Plenty of other options for grading were possible. I guess UCAS will be having an interesting week now.
Anyway hopefully my other nephew will pass his gcse maths. He was 2 points under, then one on last resit. He needs a pass to be a firefighter.
Fingers crossed. I know someone who had to sit GCSE maths twice to get his C… and went on to get a Masters eventually… and has had all sorts of interesting careers since.
GCSE results actually get released to the schools midnight on Tuesday, so not a lot of time to replace the awarded grades with CAG grades, it's not simply cut and paste.
i_like_food already happening at my wife's school including threats of legal action and some parents playing the race card.
Removing the cap on UNI places is not going to help those institutions that have already full intakes, subjects like medicine and sciences where facilities limit the number of students, it's not just case of shoving a few more in the lecture theatre.
Gavin Williamson has now pushed Gove into second place for most hated education Secretary, not something I expected in my life time.
With a bit of luck, those who were messed about and their parents will remember who caused their anguish come election time. While many will forget what Cummings did on his little jaunt as it didn’t directly affect them, this did, jeopardising their or their children’s futures.
Think this is bad, what's going to happen when Brexit explodes in January, there won't be any U-turns then.
Tom I hope you're right but I think there are still many many Johnson apologists out there. My neighbour for example isn't a great Johnson fan but hates Stammer for some reason. I asked him why yesterday, seemed to boil down to Stammer basically disagreeing with everything Johnson does and not doing something himself, I fear my otherwise sound neighbour hasn't got a good grasp of the concept of the opposition. I know other people who think Johnson and co are doing an OK job, I don't think they really have a clue what Johnson is doing but the thought he might be as bad as the rest of us know he is scares them witless so they keep up the pretence. I'm just hoping this absolute mess and the job losses post furlough might wake enough folk up, it's terrible it's had to come to this.
A U-turn absolutely no one is surprised about..
My neighbour for example isn’t a great Johnson fan but hates Stammer for some reason. I asked him why yesterday, seemed to boil down to Stammer basically disagreeing with everything Johnson does and not doing something himself
My brexity, Boris loving parents, are regularly shocked & dismayed by the government's mishandling of this crisis from the start
Yet they keep on deciding Boris is actually doing the best.
Do people just not like admitting they backed an idiot?
This farce will no doubt be forgotten soon enough, though.perhaps not for the pupils & parents messed around by this.
Williamson as useless as you might imagine
And (so far) there are still plenty of my daughter’s cohort missing out on their university places, despite now getting better grades than their original offer required. A problem not faced by those at public schools. This isn’t over yet…
WTF
Yup, but that poster is a bit late to the party. That effect was obvious as soon as the results were announced on Thursday.
This isn’t over yet…
Sadly, not by a long way and in many different ways. Already a fair few reports of schools being contacted by irate parents about CAGs, and at least one headteacher (or at least a troll posing as a headteacher) contacting 5 News complaining that although their school did the CAGs fairly, they 'know' other schools didn't so their students are disadvantaged by the u-turn position.
More (played for?) culture war stuff on the cards - public (parents) vs schools and teachers, school vs school, etc. All while we are trying to be ready to reopen fully in a couple of week's time...
Just waiting for the announcement that Ofqual is being disbanded and replaced by some organisation headed up by Dido...
Kimbers that's what I posted 4 days ago and was called a load of old bollocks by our resident teacher.
It gets better, the schools now have to issue the CAG grades for GCSE now instead of the exam boards, the exam boards will be sending out the confirmed grades next week. Even more pressures on schools already reeling from the backlash against the grades the schools put in now the government has surrendered any responsibility for the disaster.
It's totally unfair to expect the schools to have deal with this, the emails coming in from parents are generally pathetic with some being quite abusive and even threatening legal action because they think little Johnny deserved better. Teachers and support staff have been through enough without this rubbish. Next big one will be FOI requests, not like schools don't have enough to work through with GCSEs and trying to make sense of the mental expectations for re-openning.
Oh and just to make it even more fun apparently some grades may go up above the CAG grades when they are finally issued next week. Something else to beat the schools up with.
Oh and just to make it even more fun apparently some grades may go up above the CAG grades when they are finally issued next week. Something else to beat the schools up with.
To be fair, poor old Gavlar had to throw something in there to appease all the fee-paying parents and still give them some kind of edge over the plebs.
Has anyone else noticed that Gavin Williamson could be Frank Spencer's love child?
Yup. It's a long standing joke on eduTwitter.
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Do people just not like admitting they backed an idiot?
Basically yes. See also Brexit.
This caught my eye:
Miles King
@MilesKing10
· Aug 13
Appears that Ofqual's algorithm caused today's A-level chaos. Ofqual chair Roger Taylor, also chairs the Centre for Data Ethics & Innovation (CDEI). Cummings' fave AI consultants - Faculty, have some juicy contracts with CDEI. And Faculty's COO Richard Sargeant is on CDEI board.
Gav on R4/BBC
Mr Williamson said it had been the common view of the government, Ofqual, and the devolved administrations in Wales and Northern Ireland of different political parties that the system in place was more robust and "significantly better" than that in Scotland, after an earlier U-turn there.
But after the release of A-level results on Thursday he said it "became increasingly apparent that there were too many young people that quite simply hadn't got the grade they truly deserved".
It became apparent on Thursday there were too many affected.
Frankly, bollocks. Do they think we believe they ran the algorithm on Wednesday and this is a surprise. They've known the impact on grades for weeks or months, and could have released to schools sooner as well and seen the impact AND if necessary refined.
Bollocks. They thought like everything else they could just brazen it out and it would go away. Wrong again.
Boris and co will get their grades in due course, and I'm hoping they get F across the board.
Frankly, bollocks. Do they think we believe they ran the algorithm on Wednesday and this is a surprise. They’ve known the impact on grades for weeks or months, and could have released to schools sooner as well and seen the impact AND if necessary refined.
This.
I still have some sympathy for OFQual despite the cockup, I imagine there was all sorts of political diktats issued and then silence, followed up by well you got all that wrong.
My guess is Gav will remain in post until a week or so after schools go back, when that falls apart miserably he'll be axed then, no point in taking him out now when we still have GCSEs to be issued and school returning. Might as well let him take the blame before wheeling the next incompetent in.
He might get moved back to Defence in a Cabinet re-shuffle, after all he was such a huge success there the first time
Poor Matty Hancock could have avoided all of this were it not for Gove abolishing coursework and modular exams (in state schools) in England plus a load of vocational courses. The universities have now got to increase numbers for medicine (not easy) and if GCSEs are inflated there'll be kids signing up for the wrong courses in the 6th form. A fecal thunderstorm. Plus he's being told his credibility is shot (prelude to 'resignation'?) and he's issued a photo with ministerial brief plus a little book (of blackmail?) sitting atop a whip. This man is a sophisticate. Someone needs to tell him the average exam board has all of about six trained staff to deal with the complex demands of appeals. He hasn't done his homework, again.
Faculty haven't yet claimed they have had Fac all to do with the algorithm so they're still under suspicion. Wonder how much they got paid for that?
Edit: Not Hancock but Williamson. Senior moment but it's easy to get confused with so many r soles in this outfit.
Boris and co will get their grades in due course, and I’m hoping they get F across the board
More likely to be an F and a U.
Having not really read up much about this, is it really the massive problem it is being made out to be in the first instance, they appear to have used an algorithm that may have been slightly flawed, but have now replaced that by basically giving pupils the grades they want, as if passing was a foregone conclusion?
From my own (25 years ago) experiences, i remember that at the exam we had the best in the class panic and fail, we had some in the lower end sail through, you can't really generate that environment (as well as the stress) through an algorithm, so you're always going to have those who benefit, or don't benefit from not taking an exam.
I just worry about the effect of more Uni places and more students going into full time education with a lower level of knowledge and understanding, they're already behind the curve due to Covid-19, next year is going to be harder than most for Uni students, and to add more numbers with the same resource (or less!) is just keeping this issue burning away.
but have now replaced that by basically giving pupils the grades they want, as if passing was a foregone conclusion?
No its give them the teacher assessed grades or the algorithm (whichever was highest). So not what they wanted.
As far as I am aware they didnt apply any random "you had a shit day" changes to grades so your comments about people having a bad day are irrelevant. To try and do that via an algorithm in a fair way you would need to know a hell of a lot about each individual student which they didnt.
One small point of order (but one the media is missing and its winding the profession up a bit).
They are not 'Teacher Assessed Grades', they are 'Centre Assessed Grades'. Teachers may have generated them originally, but in the vast majority (should be all) of cases they then went through an internal moderation process through heads of department and leadership teams, in many cases where they had a local version of the algorithm (or similar process to account for prior attainment) applied to them.
The distinction is a fine one but important. We're already anecdotally seeing individual teachers under attack for the grades they have awarded, when in fact those published grades may look quite different from what the teacher submitted.
they are ‘Centre Assessed Grades’
They're also not "predicted grades". I think some of the distress online was because some students were comparing the grade the'd been awarded with the predicted grade they were given for UCAS or with the grades needed for the offer that they were holding.
is it really the massive problem it is being made out to be in the first instance
Yeah it is for a good number of schools and students. The algorithm worked at a global level, but failed spectacularly at a school and individual level. No algorithm was going to get it right at student level but at school level it should have been possible at the cost of a bit of grade inflation (not as much as we will now get with center assessed grades which is expected and understandable). I can't be bothered to explain it all again but suffice to say it was easily predictable and could have been worked around.
colournoise, really good point, most schools went through a major moderation exercise and tried to be professional as they could given the lack of guidance and rushed manner this was all done under, these grades weren't plucked out of the air.
miketually, also spot on, my wife's been making the point repeatedly to students that UCAS grades are completely different from CAG grades. Mind you the standard of some of the appeals coming in answers the question why little Johnny didn't get the grade they wanted, parents are obviously unable to read the documentation and explanations sent out and incapable of forming a coherent argument beyond it's not fair and I think my little angel deserves better (and they are the nicer emails coming in).
The press is doing its usual job of failing to explain properly and whipping up emotions and trying to turn it into a class war, yes private schools came out of this better but there's no evidence it was deliberate, just a result of the massive cock up in the way it was done.
The algorithm worked at a global level, but failed spectacularly at a school and individual level.
Our college's value added over the previous three years was +0.12, +0.06 and +0.18 so a sensible algorithm would have given us around +0.12 this year but instead it's given us around 0.00 - in a typical year we have one U grade from 1000 students but this year had a dozen.
For my course, the algorithm gave us our worst results since we started getting results using the new A-level specs in 2017.
We expected the algorithm to move the boundaries around a little to standardise between centres, but it completely failed to do that.
Having not really read up much about this, is it really the massive problem it is being made out to be in the first instance, they appear to have used an algorithm that may have been slightly flawed, but have now replaced that by basically giving pupils the grades they want, as if passing was a foregone conclusion?
'I know nothing about this, and can't be bothered to find out, but that's not going to stop me giving out my ill-informed opinions anyway'
And this is why democracy is broken.
@Grum, i'm pretty sure most are like this, unless you have a working knowledge of the algorithm that was utilised, how it was, and who created it, and how this has actually affected the results nationwide, i know of the news reports, they appear focused on class and those who have missed out due to the grading, as you'd expect from news agencies focusing on juicier stories, but what is the actual level of the problem in the first instance, i.e. the initial results against previous years in terms of pass rates, appeals, etc?
As for democracy, i'm not sure of your point, or how this is linked to how democracy should work and how it currently works in your opinion?
Having not really read up much about this, is it really the massive problem it is being made out to be in the first instance, they appear to have used an algorithm that may have been slightly flawed, but have now replaced that by basically giving pupils the grades they want, as if passing was a foregone conclusion?
problem is that university places are allocated based on offers so the best courses have all been taken up already, doesnt matter what new grades they give out the places have gone and 1000s of students have missed out
know of the news reports, they appear focused on class and those who have missed out due to the grading, as you’d expect from news agencies focusing on juicier stories, but what is the actual level of the problem in the first instance,
according the Times report a few pages back average private school grade inflation 15%, compared to 0.3% for other 6th formers
plenty of the media have gone into detail into how badly this has messed up & why its not a trvial cock up, several linked to on this thread already