- This topic has 197 replies, 55 voices, and was last updated 3 years ago by onehundredthidiot.
-
English Exams
-
colournoiseFull Member
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?
Fresh Goods Friday 696: The Middling Edition
Latest Singletrack VideosFresh Goods Friday 696: The Middlin...frankconwayFull MemberWill williamson (be encouraged to) resign or will the chinless wonder say ‘sorry’ again and then continue blundering on?
colournoiseFull MemberIs 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).
ahsatFull MemberCap on uni places now officially removed too.
The consequences of this is huge!
i_like_foodFull MemberHaving 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!
dannyhFree MemberThis 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.
TiRedFull MemberThis 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.
kelvinFull MemberFingers 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.
stumpyjonFull MemberGCSE 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.
tomhowardFull MemberWith 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.
stumpyjonFull MemberThink 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.
kimbersFull MemberA 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
kimbersFull MemberWTF
On A-levels, I'd assumed (as did my panel of educators on the radio on Saturday) that private schools had done better with the Ofqual algorithm simply because they had better track records of turning predictions into similar grades. But its so much worse than that… pic.twitter.com/KJznj6JlNw
— Hugo Rifkind (@hugorifkind) August 17, 2020
kelvinFull MemberAnd (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…
colournoiseFull MemberWTF
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…
stumpyjonFull MemberKimbers 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.
colournoiseFull MemberOh 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.
ElShalimoFull MemberHas anyone else noticed that Gavin Williamson could be Frank Spencer’s love child?
dannyhFree MemberDo people just not like admitting they backed an idiot?
Basically yes. See also Brexit.
BillMCFull MemberThis 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.theotherjonvFull MemberGav 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.
stumpyjonFull MemberFrankly, 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.
ElShalimoFull MemberHe might get moved back to Defence in a Cabinet re-shuffle, after all he was such a huge success there the first time
BillMCFull MemberPoor 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?BillMCFull MemberEdit: Not Hancock but Williamson. Senior moment but it’s easy to get confused with so many r soles in this outfit.
ajantomFull MemberBoris 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.
argeeFull MemberHaving 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.
dissonanceFull Memberbut 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.colournoiseFull MemberOne 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.
miketuallyFree Memberthey 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.
stumpyjonFull Memberis 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.
miketuallyFree MemberThe 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.
grumFree MemberHaving 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.
argeeFull Member@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?
kimbersFull MemberHaving 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
The topic ‘English Exams’ is closed to new replies.