Gavin Williamson

bollieboy said:
Did he really say boosting A level grades presents a danger of pupils being over promoted into jobs that are beyong their competence ?

🤔
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Not seen it but unless your words are taken out of context with regards to all of what he said, that is pretty shameful words by him.
 
This system has resulted in the percentage of A and A* given to private school entrants increasing by 4.4 per cent year on year. He is happy for that to happen......
 
I’ve said it before this years grades are meaningless. As well as teachers doing the grading having “favourites” anybody can swan through the school year. I’ve known pupils do great through the year and as soon as they have to deal with exam pressure they crumble. A persons talents come to the fore when under pressure which is why exams are important. Anyone employing this years crop are taking a huge gamble.
 
Better than Sturgeon caving in to results being based just on teacher assessments of grades, which are 20% higher than the normal level of results. Teachers are bound to over inflate grades because they reflect on their own performance
 
Exams, at any age, can be stressful. I hated them when at school and have sat a few since leaving. I remember one of the questions I had to answer in-depth for one of my Health & Safety Exams when I was in my fifties. It was to do with digging a hole, providing correct PPE, the reasons for it along with any hazards that could occur the associate risks and how they should be surmounted. I did a full-page assessment of the work and through thinking too hard about the answer, forgot the all-important part of someone falling in the hole. It was only afterwards when I was going through things in my mind that I was happy with all the questions I had answered in the paper and realised I'd forgotten about the most important thing in that certain question. Fortunately, I had done enough in the rest of the paper to pass. I felt like a right idiot.
 
Well the idea that 'your school is usually shit, so you must be too' is hardly a way to grade pupils either. This year and next years GCSE/A Level students definitely need special dispensation relating to how their results are considered. Any kid in year 10 has basically missed 5 months of school work and the level of support provided to them (through nobody's fault) has ranged from adequate to non-existent.
 
Teachers predicted grades are based on the best grade students could achieve with a set of exams which will favour that students individual strengths. Of course the actual papers will suit some students but not others so actual performance will vary. It is impossible for teachers to second guess which students will get a "good" paper and nor should they do so.
Unfortunately the algorithm decides that all students in historically poorer performing schools have a bad day while students in affluent areas and private schools are much more likely to have been judged to have a good day. Anyone with a tiny bit of intelligence can see that this is unjust and immoral. Of course that does not account for someone like JLSS who thinks predicted grades are based on how much we like a student rather than two years of assessing work. In our case that amounted to nine prior tests. You can argue about that as a system of teaching but that is a completely different debate. Each year we have to account for now well our predictions match the grades achieved by the students in the actual papers so teachers are pretty realistic about what their students can achieve. Much more accurate than JLSS and his imaginary crumbling students.
The only fair solution is to treat all students equally and if that means all students get the benefit then so what. It's not like any teacher would predict a D student as an A.
 
catinstalbans said:
Teachers predicted grades are based on the best grade students could achieve with a set of exams which will favour that students individual strengths. Of course the actual papers will suit some students but not others so actual performance will vary. It is impossible for teachers to second guess which students will get a "good" paper and nor should they do so.
Unfortunately the algorithm decides that all students in historically poorer performing schools have a bad day while students in affluent areas and private schools are much more likely to have been judged to have a good day. Anyone with a tiny bit of intelligence can see that this is unjust and immoral. Of course that does not account for someone like JLSS who thinks predicted grades are based on how much we like a student rather than two years of assessing work. In our case that amounted to nine prior tests. You can argue about that as a system of teaching but that is a completely different debate. Each year we have to account for now well our predictions match the grades achieved by the students in the actual papers so teachers are pretty realistic about what their students can achieve. Much more accurate than JLSS and his imaginary crumbling students.
The only fair solution is to treat all students equally and if that means all students get the benefit then so what. It's not like any teacher would predict a D student as an A.
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Pissing in the wind I'm afraid. The idea that we mark up our favourites literally made me laugh out loud.
Imagine a subject teacher, with all the prior assessments that are logged on the school database, deliberately overexaggerating a grade, getting it past the scrutiny of their HOD, the HOD getting it past their SLT boss and a member of SLT convincing the Head that it's a bona fide grade. Laughable.
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"Unfortunately the algorithm decides"......... 🤔

But it's a data set based on:
Exam results of students who took the same subject at the same school from 2017 - 2019
And the expected grades from this year’s students.....

So as SouthShorePool says.......you cant just make it up
And it follows that schools with a history of poor exam results are not suddenly going to find everyone passing with A*
Yes....certain individuals may have been badly down graded....but the school can appeal and Universities have said they will look on merit.
 
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