The English A level (and no doubt, GCSE) exam fiasco is unfolding, just as it has in Scotland.
Scotland has had to abandon its exam algorithm because it has been widely considered to be unfair. Teacher forecasts have been substituted.
In anticipation of the same crisis in England, Gavin Williamson has announced that students might use their mock A-level results instead of those to be allocated tomorrow.
I suggest that, as usual, in what is an embarrassment for both governments Scotland has been substantially more successful in addressing the issue than England has been, so far.
I should admit that I have personal interest in this issue: my younger son is expecting results tomorrow morning, and success or otherwise in securing a university place depends upon them. I fully accept that my objectivity is compromised as a result. But, that said, the issue I want to raise is a systemic one. The difference in approach between England and Scotland is not down to reaction to last-minute panic. It is about something more fundamental, and that is the confidence that these administrations display in the professional people who serve their communities.
The only people able to appraise the likely results of those set to take these exams in the absence of an examination were those teachers who had got to know the pupils in question, who had appraised their work, and who had as a consequence the opportunity to create a professional opinion upon it, which opinion could be second checked by another teacher familiar with the system in which they were working. Logically, teacher assessment was the only way in which this issue could be resolved.
Of course there were issues to address. Some schools would be under pressure to overstate likely results. Some teachers might have unwittingly understated performance for some social groups: this is known to be a problem. And exceptional pupils were always going to stand out from the crowd. But, I suggest, all these issues could have been addressed, and in a much better way than has been done.
First, it should have been stated from the outset that teacher assessment was what mattered: after all, like it or not that is now happening.
Secondly. therefore, those assessments should have been provisionally published when submitted, months ago.
Third, OfQual should have stated in advance when they would address issues at a school, in particular, for example because of aberrational increases or decreases in performance. It should have been made clear which schools were being investigated. Evidence from the school, parents and pupils should have been sought. This would have involved a minority of cases, of course. And it would have been fair.
And fourth, pupils should have been allowed to appeal their grades three months ago. That way time would have been available to look into cases and top resolve issues to ensure satisfaction with the outcomes.
This would have been fair to all - and a disincentive to school game playing as well. It would also have respected professional opinion, whilst allowing that it can be wrong (as it is every year when exams are regarded on remarking).
This would have worked. But it would have required respect for the opinion of teachers as professional people. And the government, at least in England did not, and still does not, have that. Instead, it believed that everyone was out to cheat. That was a false, crude and deeply patronising assumption that says more about that who held that view than it does about teachers. And because the professional opinions of those who know have been ignored we have a mess. As we have had on either issues of as much significance of late.
I am not saying all professional people are virtuous. I am certainly not saying that they cannot make mistakes. But I am saying algorithms are no substitute for professional judgement. And I do think it's time that the government learned that this is the case, and that they do not necessarily know best.
Very specifically, it is always true that there are occasions when knowledge of statistical distributions is no substitute for sound judgement. Some in No. 10 need to take note.
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I have an interest tomorrow too.
Whatever system is used could be criticised. It is very hard to devise a system that will work well and accurately for multiplicity of circumstances. (Can you imagine the pressure on teachers and schools, and the bad feeling likely to be engendered on both sides, if the estimated grades had been published when they were submitted?)
We know teachers systematically overestimate predicted grades. We know “good” schools (which tend to be in less deprived areas – not the children’s fault of corse, but why do we allow that?) tend to get better result than the others. We can model for that. But we also know some children will do unexpectedly well or poorly in the exams, and some will miss their expected straight As or A*s (and so miss their place to study medicine) and others will get them excellent without expecting it. Even professional judgement can’t deal with that.
Whatever happens, there will be many university place to fill anyway, and fewer applications from overseas this year.
Once university applications are done and dusted, and sixth form etc next week, I expect most employers will take this year’s exam results with an even larger pinch of salt than usual.
This debacle does show the absurdity of boiling 13 years of formal education down to a few letters which govern a young person’s future life trajectory.
It’s an impossible situation there will always be winners and losers compared to the actual outcome. University places will be in abundance however so can’t see many missing out though perhaps not first choices.
All very unfortunate and another unavoidable consequence of covid. Let’s hope schooling gets back to normal asap
IMO the rot goes back to Gove’s abolition of the General Teaching Council, which required teachers to be registered to practise, as are doctors, dentists, barristers, solicitors and many other professionals.
This was Gove signalling that he didn’t consider teachers professionals, worthy of respect, consultation and involvement, but instead regarded them a shopfloor operatives.
Agreed
And Gove drives this government, with Cummings
I strongly suspect the algorithms used here in Scotland were entrenching the education divide. I don’t see how they can’t tested on past results. But the future doesn’t have to be like yesterday. Scotgov has been banging the drum over the results in poorer areas. Is it beyond possible that the teachers responded? Perhaps those who had given up realised it was worth fighting again?
What if that was beginning to bear fruit but the algorithms were in the way of it? That is what might have been happening. Of course exams you know are real are different from mocks as well. The question is how big is this effect? I’m not sure we know & trying to decide based on the socio-economic position of postcodes seems manifestly unfair.
The failure in Scotland was a government failure of obsessive ‘managerialism’ of setting the ambition as operating the existing as efficiently and competently as possible. The problem is, it is education and everyone knows the Scottish Government requires to change the system, because too many Scottish children are allowed to fail through deprivation; through the existing system ruining their life chances early. Managerialism is not enough.
John Swinney is (sorry, Richard) an accountant. He oozes managerialism. That is why he is admired as a ‘safe pair of hands’. He approached an insoluble problem by trying to fix it by making a bad system work to its best. It did. The problem is, COVID-19 revealed that the SQA were essentially measuring schools and the system, not pupils. Suddenly the patent absurdity of the system was revealed for all to see (just as ‘market forces’ as the answer to everything has benn crushed by the virus). John Swinney fell for ‘ticking a box’, but doing it well and with good intentions. He was unlucky, but managerialism is no enough, and it never was going to fix this; that is now obvious.
As for England I do not wish to comment; I saw on C4 news the day before yesterday (?) some senior English education administrator sneering at Scotland’s predicament as a gross failure; then proposing that if England had the same problem they needed to do something fast before the results came out. Jon Snow looked bewildered. I will say no more on the matter.
“The failure in Scotland was a government failure of obsessive ‘managerialism’; of setting the ambition as one of operating the existing system as efficiently and competently as possible.”
My typo-bloopers are taking a life of their own.
“Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.” (Shelley)
Well, after all, as bloopers go ……
John, I’d heard Swinney is an accountant too, but his Wikipedia entry https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Swinney states he graduated in politics at Edinburgh Uni and makes no mention of accountancy as either a qualification or occupation. I suspect it’s one of those urban myths that somehow becomes “fact”, or else it’s a subtle piece of political slander put out by opponents to smear him. Mind you it could have been worse: they might have said he was an actuary.
Oh, for Pete’s sake, the nincompoops in our so-called government have had literally months to prepare for this, and now they are making it up as they go along. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-53746140 “The Department for Education announced a “triple lock” – so results will be the highest out of their estimated grades, their mocks and an optional written exam in the autumn.” What a fiasco.
But it’s eliminated stress in my household this morning….on this basis my son has his university place
Congratulations!
Where is he going to be studying?
Business and marketing
Which university?
Aberystwyth
This son hates large cities
His brother loves them
That’s good news about your son. Just posting to say we have first-hand experience of Aberystwyth as our daughter went there to study History of Art and graduated in 2017. She went on to do an MA at the Courtauld institute so it is well regarded.
Lovely place to visit, PM me if you need ideas on places to eat and stay.
Please!
I think I will be visiting more often than he thinks desirable
I’m appalled that they have used algorithms on a sensitive piece of work like this.
So, OK, tell us how you bloody configured them then? What bias is there ingrained in the numbers, eh?
If these kids could vote, they would not have been treated like this. Labour can add voting rights for young people of 16 years old as far as far as I am concerned and add that to the list of things to do.
As if these kids haven’t got enough on their plate.
Agreed
I remain anxious tonight
Wales, of course, is not following English rules
Asking for details of the algorithm to be released is a fair question, particularly as there is nothing that can be done about it now. I bet it is nowhere near as fancy or complicated as some might expect.
Given the way school years work, Most of those receiving A level etc results today will be 18 already, although most will not have been able to vote last December.
My son is still 17
Not for much longer, but he is right now
And thankfully he got the grades he would have hoped for if he had taken the exams and so has his place at university
But I am already aware of many amongst his friends and those of others I know who did not
Congratulations.
Given the grades have gone up a little overall, we are left with an argument about distribution, which will turn into one about disadvantage on various axes, and there will be hard cases. Some transparency about how the process has worked would help. (If the teacher estimates had been accepted, we would have seen results significantly rise – this year is exceptional in many ways, but I’m struggling to see why we should favour this cohort over last year and next year.)
My “aha” moment this morning was realising that the the moderation has given some students lower results than their mocks, which almost never happens in reality: that data should have been baked in from the start as a baseline, rather than bolted on at the end as a potential route for appeal.
My son has friends where this outcome has happened
Equally he has friends who are regretting not taking mocks seriously. Thankfully, he did.
Having been an exam marker in Scotland some years ago, I don’t share many of the criticisms of what happened. The divergence between our grading of the sample papers, ie among us markers and then between us and the official grades awarded by the examiners was quite considerable. The same work could be a pass or fail.
The Exam Board then applied factors to markers’ grades to account for leniency or severity of marking and then the “pass mark” was adjusted to account for the variation in the difficulty of the exam and the assumption that on average each year cohort was likely to be similar to each previous cohort.
I expect something similar still takes place, to “maintain credibility” – but that never stopped opposition parties crying “grade inflation”, which ironically, is what has now happened.
However, it is good that nobody now feels they’ve been denied their “proper” grade, and that the SG has had the humility to both accept responsibility and put it right.
But, look, the real problem is universities. I have never believed in “big bang” exams (especially so after studying Education at Stirling). We should say, “so and so has completed the course” and write a resume of so-and-so qualities and achievements etc. And then leave it to universities and others to make their own arrangements for classifying applicants as “good, indifferent and shouldn’t be let near the place”.
What we have is the university tail wagging the education dog. This has to stop. The purpose of Education is not to grade young people as suitable or not suitable for going onto studying at university. It skews the whole process and makes teachers feel they have to get their pupils through the exams as a priority.
Time for universities to do their own sorting and grading and weeding out of the unsuitable – if that’s how they view young people aspiring to continue their education.
Agreed
And what I found as a lecturer at university was that the supposedly brightest weren’t always that
The letters page of The Herald, insofar as it supposedly represents a barometer of public opinion, was full of letters noisily condemning Scotgov’s role in undermining the Scottish education system and unfairly prejudicing the futures of the students. Then, following the U-turn by Scotgov, letters are starting to appear condemning Scotgov’s role in undermining the Scottish education system and unfairly prejudicing the futures of the students by lowering marking standards. All the UK Governments were faced with an utterly unique problem: how to measure school leavers’ attainments without a final test in examination circumstances. I don’t recall any of the Herald’s angry correspondents offering any suggestions as to how this problem might have been resolved, but what was patently obvious was their raging politicisation and blaming of a hugely important and personal matter for students, their parents and their teachers and schools. I imagine the same will happen throughout the rest of the UK very soon.
Quite so
Richard – your son will need to be fit if he’s going to Aberystwyth! That hill is taxing – a great friend of mine did her M.A. there and said she had to be fit for a marathon every day.
With any luck – i.e. without another lockdown – we’ll be living in Machynlleth – or one of the villages between Mach and Aber – by summer next year. There’ll be a spare bedroom, wherever. And we’d love you to come for a few days, so we can share favourite places in Wales. My own favourite view is that up the Dysenni valley from Llanegryn, with the Bird Rock and the bastions of Cadair – we’ll be there in just over three weeks, if Boris doesn’t strike at the over 50’s in the meantime…
Jeni
You’re right
I have suggested that a bike is not much use in Aber for that reason
But we’ve just been climbing slate quarries – and he’s pretty fit. Almost as much as his dad! I am looking forward to visits to Wales. Happy to meet up.
Best
Richard