Two days have passed since eighteen year old across the country logged into their VLEs or went into their Sixth Form centres to pick up the envelope containing the awarded outcome of the last two years of their study and hard work. Many were delighted, I am exceptionally happy for those students. My son was amongst those who got exactly what was predicted and is now off to his first choice uni. As a parent I could sit back and rest on my laurels, right? Wrong.
Williamson’s last minute announcement of the triple lock was our first proper indication that something was awry (I will come back to the triple lock later) and, by midday on Thursday, tales of multiple injustices caused by the blanket application of an ill-conceived algorithm with no regard for the individual had come to the surface.
The government and Ofqual argued that, due to teachers’ overpredictions, it was necessary to apply the algorithm to bring results into line with previous years. Williamson stated that a minority of schools had tried to take advantage of the situation and predicted all As and A*s when in previous years they had had a normal range of results. I contend that those in charge of the system failed in their duty by not challenging such submissions and seeking evidence at the time they were provided back in May. This small amount of work on their part may well have negated the need to apply their flawed statistical methodology later in the process.
What else have the examboards been doing anyway? All schools will have paid for their entries but the outlay for the boards will have been much diminished due to the lack of requirement for markers this exam season. Perhaps the cash surplus might have been used to employ people to do balances and checks on the new results produced by the algorithm so that glaring inconsistencies between a student’s prior attainment, mock results, teacher prediction and their ‘result’ could have been investigated prior to results day. How long exactly have they sat on these (for some) terribly unfair grades and done zilch to put them right?
Did the teachers overpredict? An ex- colleague of mine who has been in the profession for many years argues that teachers more accurately know what their students are capable of; what they can’t account for is who will have a blip on the day, whose nerves will get the better of them and so they are able to provide a more accurate holistic picture of the students abilities than any exam can.
The triple lock is unfit for purpose – mocks are usually taken at a time when classes have not completed the syllabus. Expecting students to take an exam 8 months after they have received any formal teaching and (for GCSE students) at a time when they are getting to grips with the demands of the next level of study is ridiculous if we are wanting good outcomes.
I have tweeted Mr Williamson asking for a breakdown by sector of the 2% of results that were upgraded. Why anyone would believe that teachers would underpredict results for their classes is unfathomable. I shall be backing this up with an email to my local MP in the quest for this information. It is clear that bright kids in lower attaining schools bore the brunt of the downgrading, that is not to say that it didn’t happen in other contexts and it is unfair to all students who saw their dreams dashed because of it. Which sector benefitted this year? In terms of As and A* increases it was the independents. Could the same be said of upgrading too? We shall see.
Now we face the agonising wait for the GCSE results. If nothing is done to improve the system ahead of this coming Thursday, I am fearful on two levels:
Firstly, for my own child and her hopes to get onto the A levels of her choice.
Secondly, for the students I teach. My classes are made up of the extended (more able students) in a school in a disadvantaged area.
I hope for them that common sense will have prevailed by Thursday and that all students get the results they deserve as assessed by the teachers who know them well. That will not mean that they get an easy ride of it, hours were put into the system of determining the correct grades; difficult but honest decisions were made. Centre assessed grades would not mean that all kids end up cartwheeling down the street at their bumper results. Some students would not fare so well but at least there would be integrity in the grade. It would be decided by someone who knows and has worked with the student rather than a computer programme.
Poetry for Dullards 