‘A’level results, not a level playing field.

Growstuff you are trying hard to make things clear . Keep at it .
I saw a comment from a head where she explained how her pupils had been affected.I did post it on the other site about exams (Coronavirus )
Here goes..... from the TimesYesterday ....the head of St Mary Magdalene Academy.Islington "an Alevel geography student had her teacher assessed grade pulled down from B to E simply because Ofqual's algorithm dictated tht someone at the school had to get an E in that subject , no matter how bright. In previous years about ten pupils had taken geography and in the past two years one pupil had got an E. This year 15 students took the subject, and their GSCE results showed the cohort was more able than previous years . The pupil ranked lowest on the B grades was bumped to an E."

So history plays a part too. There was a very good explanation on the news channel BBc news where a Head gave further explation. A shame the Beeb didn't put that on the 1pm news.

Over 5000 Cambridge alumni have signed a letter to the Vice-Chancellor of Cambridge to ask for all state school offers to be honoured.

growstuff- I certainly would tell boys from Eton that university isn't the only way to a good career. It's as true for them as for any other pupil.

You're right westendgirl. That's how it works. If a school regularly achieves nearly all good grades, but last year just one pupils achieved a low grade, one pupil must achieve a similar low grade this year, even though he or she has consistently shown that she is better.

PS. I've done my best to explain. There's so much nonsense flying around about private schools not overestimating (they most certainly do) and being "better". The fact that private schools with generally smaller entries have been awarded higher grades without pupils even sitting an exam just shows that the system is flawed.

Jane10

*growstuff*- I certainly would tell boys from Eton that university isn't the only way to a good career. It's as true for them as for any other pupil.

Really?

In any case, it's irrelevant. If a very bright pupil wants to go to university, she/he should be allowed the same opportunity as somebody who has been to Eton and whose parents expect university entrance. Old Etonians are already born with silver spoons in their mouths. For pupils from more modest backgrounds, it's sometimes the only opportunity to prove they're as good as the best.

This flawed system has denied some of those pupils the opportunity.

I wondered how long it would be growstuff before you bombarded the thread with your thoughts.......didn’t have to wait long!
No matter what anyone else says you always know best....how wonderful??

lemongrove

I wondered how long it would be growstuff before you bombarded the thread with your thoughts.......didn’t have to wait long!
No matter what anyone else says you always know best....how wonderful??

In this case I did know more than you did.

Sorry if people don't want to know the facts.

Not thoughts by the way lemongrove - facts!

Facts sometimes skewed to fit in with your own opinions growstuff and very anti the independent schools.
What I hope, is that instead of posters taking your ‘facts’ or mine or anyone on here, they do a lot of reading, and listening before they jump in ,and decide for themselves.
You do rather tend to set yourself up as the top armchair education expert on the forum ....you aren’t the only ex teacher by the way.

Jane10

Goodness knows how on earth it could have been managed fairly. With the best will in the world there are inequalities in quality of education available, social background support and just plain academic ability. Some schools admit inflating predicted grades because they knew what was likely to happen. Other more honest schools did not do that. So what do we have? A lot of youngsters with grades that may or may not be accurate. I reckon that universities and colleges should accept those who really want to go there and time will sort out those who are up to the work required or are not.
University is not the only route to a good career.

As Jane says ?

I don't see any of the other ex-teachers rushing on here to disagree with growstuff.

Tea hers know that their predictions are often very hopeful, to say the least MaizieD !

Sorry... teachers ( ipad doesn’t like certain letters and misses them out)

If you have a valid argument, I'd love to hear it and I'd be willing to discuss. But you don't! What you've claimed has no basis in fact.

Anyway, if you do manage to find a flaw in my argument, let me know. I'm busy this afternoon, but I'll puck it up later.

PS. You don't have any facts

*pick (not "puck") - written in haste.

lemongrove

Tea hers know that their predictions are often very hopeful, to say the least MaizieD !

So are private school teachers' predictions, but they tend to have small class sizes, so their assessments (CAGs) weren't adjusted. How difficult is that to understand?

I expect some posters will try the old political point scoring,but it would be nice to leave that out just for once.

It was the only way to do things this year.....the alternative was to believe all the teachers predictions and have ridiculously high grades all round, far and above every other year so far.
Which Scotland didn’t want to do but have given in to, because they are worried about future SNP votes.

It isn’t a hot political potato here, because there are no elections for years.

lemongrove

Tea hers know that their predictions are often very hopeful, to say the least MaizieD !

Teachers knew that their grade assessments were serious and vitally important because they had to take the place of exam results.

Insinuations that they deliberately overstated grades are really very insulting to the profession.

That’s sweet and naive MaizieD ... but you have no understanding as to what teachers do when it comes to predicting grades.

Which Scotland didn’t want to do but have given in to, because they are worried about future SNP votes.

Sorry? What was that about 'no political point scoring'?

lemongrove

That’s sweet and naive MaizieD ... but you have no understanding as to what teachers do when it comes to predicting grades.

You are becoming obnoxious, lemon.

Do tell me where your 'understanding' comes from.

So why were private school predictions believed?

Here's a random selection of independent schools and the % of A*-A grades this year. 2019 figures follow in brackets.

Mayfield Girls' 66% (55%)
Sherfield School 70% (37%)
Leweston School 51% (37%)
Farlington School 62% (48%)
The Marist School 55% (52%)
Godolphin School 50% (29.2%)
St Mary's Cambridge 54% (51%)
St George's Ascot 63% (35%)
Rye St Anthony 48.1% (18.3%)

How did these schools manage to improve so much, when their pupils didn't even have to sit an exam?

If the predictions had been subject to the same algorithm which was used with most state schools, the improvements would have been impossible.

How difficult is it to understand that schools with entries below 5 for individual subjects (most of which are private schools) weren't subjected to a flawed algorithm?

lemongrove

That’s sweet and naive MaizieD ... but you have no understanding as to what teachers do when it comes to predicting grades.

Neither do you - quite obviously!