A level reaults

[Yel]

Everyone's had a terrible two years. It's not really helping anyone for the future by handing out As to half. The whole point is to grade people, have they turned it into an effort level rather than attainment?

This puts people at the mercy of if their teacher liked them and/or if they had a school that was very generous with marking their own homework to make their school look good. I know teachers will say they only judge students on their work but I don't buy that (although theym May genuinely believe it themselves) and the software to anonymize part of the marking is so flawed it's useless.

Grades will very much be used on CVs to decide between two candidates, if they're equal who are you going to give the job to the candidate with BCC or ABB despite the grading a world apart?

Also A-level result will dictate the kind of universities they do to, is quite different doing law in UWE and Bristol.

Exactly, they count towards the next stepping stone so indirectly matter a fair bit.

 

[Yel]

Not sure if there's a thread for this, but is giving half of grades a or a* the result of not using the "controversial" laddering?

I don't want to undermine anyone's hard work, but how are they even useful for the future with so many top grades? Pretty unfair to the people before 2019 when their CVs are put against the next two years.

 

[jaymie]

I mean given the awful two academic years the kids have had, the least that can be done is getting them into the university of their choice.
Do future employers REALLY look at A level results on a CV. I don’t think my college results have had any impact on me getting a job

Depending on the kind of job you apply, most graduate schemes still ask for this I guess but some have got rid of it. Also A-level result will dictate the kind of universities they do to, is quite different doing law in UWE and Bristol.

 

[Oohthedrama]

I don’t want to sound like I don’t feel sorry for this years students,
I feel sorry for all students not just exam years,
so many kids will have fallen through the cracks due to missing out on the support offered in school, but a level/leaving cert students alone,
inflating grades now is just gonna screw all students over for years to come, and many will be offered places they’re probably not academically smart enough to handle, so they’ll drop out anyway

 

[Former_Antelopee]

I mean given the awful two academic years the kids have had, the least that can be done is getting them into the university of their choice.
Do future employers REALLY look at A level results on a CV. I don’t think my college results have had any impact on me getting a job

But what if they have got higher grades than they would’ve done normally? If they get into a course they would have not got into without the increase of grades then they may struggle with the uni course?

 

[Peaches_xox]

I mean given the awful two academic years the kids have had, the least that can be done is getting them into the university of their choice.
Do future employers REALLY look at A level results on a CV. I don’t think my college results have had any impact on me getting a job

 

[Just having a nose]

It’s also unfair to those of us who lost our jobs during the pandemic (I was pregnant at the time by the way!) and who are not studying access courses/diplomas at distance trying to get into university against those who have been handed these results I’m trying to get into the medical field with no science a levels but by doing an access course and some work experience instead and by giving everyone A’s I’m certain I won’t stand a chance I appreciate school has been tough for a lot of kids, my daughter included but seriously disheartening to us oldies. A double blow intact.

edited to add, I’m not actually an ‘oldie’ I’m 27 and classed as a mature student but still competing against thes results will be tough !

 

[PineappleQueen19]

A friend was telling me that where she is from in Australia, students get a ranking score. This means it’s all relative to how everyone else performs so removes the variable of whether exams were considered easier that year etc. For example if a student gets a ranking of 90 then it means they were in the top 10%.

If it’s all about university entrance then it does make sense because you are competing with others for a university place, not something that needs to be comparable to years past.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_Tertiary_Admission_Rank

 

[Littlemisadoughnut]

I’m an A Level teacher. This was inevitable.

the resources the exam boards put together were pitiful. Resources were placed online by topic. As were the mark schemes. Because this was all such a rush, there were barely any resources to pick from. To not disadvantage the students we had to tell them the topics that were coming up.

So the kids were all fully aware of the questions and answers going into their assessments.

in the case any did get nervy and screw it up, they could submit an extenuating circumstances form, citing mental health etc, and we would use another bit of evidence (something they have done well on) in its place.

Oh and in the moderation stage we were so aware of discrimination, or more so being falsely accused of discrimination, everyone was looked at optimistically. We had to justify every single grade to the headteacher, knowing the kids and parents have free reign to contest any results they are unhappy with. Oh and we have to be called in over our (unpaid) summer to deal with the fall out, with no compensation.

so yeah. Of course they all did well. Why on earth would you not look at the material beforehand when you know every other fucker in the country will be, and it is freely available?

absolute sham.

 

[Oohthedrama]

It’s done nothing but create more problems further down the line, they can’t continue to offer more places to students, they can’t continue to try and get students to defer, online learning isn’t going to be acceptable for much longer, so in class places need to be provided, the 2022 students have a valid case for arguing they’ve been hard done by without the estimated grades advantage, it automatically casts doubt on the students that have received results this year regardless of whether they deserve them or not,

feels like an approach that’s been done in all aspects of this pandemic, put it on the long finger and we’ll deal with it tomorrow

 

[Merpedy]

I don’t see the issue in unis offering places to people they don’t think will get in? Because what if they do get the grades to get in. I know someone who didn’t apply for a top uni because they didn’t think they’d get the results, they did so they ended up going through clearing and got into a much better uni than they originally planned to go. This was before covid. They have to offer these places in my opinion because some who are expected to get in won’t and others are who aren’t expected will. Someone else I know well before covid was predicted CCC and got AAA

Which is why there’s a whole argument to run the application process after students have received their results. Obviously at this point that’s a lot of work and a massive headache, but when you give students a more favourable, and I’d argue realistic, exam process it seems to make sense.

I read a comment on Facebook from someone who seemed to work within education, and they made a very good point that normally the exam boards will limit how many people can get top grades by changing grade boundaries to reflect what they think is a fair distribution

 

[Former_Antelopee]

Also the higher grades are making it harder for the universities to plan. Like Exeter offered £10k plus a year free accommodation if medical students deferred for a year since there wasn’t enough places for the offers. And this was partly due to uncertainty about a level grades.

 

[Yel]

No surprise that inequality has risen with covid and grading mess.

Most liked comments on the mail are all "of course private schools do better!!!11!" but doesn't that miss out that it's the percentage increase that's important not the overall results?

 

[Unspiralled]

But what if they have got higher grades than they would’ve done normally? If they get into a course they would have not got into without the increase of grades then they may struggle with the uni course?

I think interviewing more applicants might be a way to get around this (obviously too late for this year). I know Oxbridge interview everyone and so do some courses like medicine and dentistry, but the majority of students aren't interviewed. This would give both the academics and the students a proper chance to decide if the course and uni is really the right fit for them.

 

[Merpedy]

Honestly I don’t see the issue apart from uni places but I think that speaks more for how our application process works and the fact that unis hand out places to people they don’t expect to get in

There’s been some talk of students cheating but the majority of that would be for basic facts (the memory side of things). At A levels everything is about applying those facts and that’s where a lot of people fall short, so no amount of cheating or notes will help them if they can’t apply their information properly and write about it.

I think interviewing more applicants might be a way to get around this (obviously too late for this year). I know Oxbridge interview everyone and so do some courses like medicine and dentistry, but the majority of students aren't interviewed. This would give both the academics and the students a proper chance to decide if the course and uni is really the right fit for them.

The reason Oxbridge interviews work is because they have a college system, so it’s not really having a major impact on all of the teaching staff. The only other university who could maybe make that work is Durham as they also have a college system but it’s run differently so that’s unlikely

I think that’s the reason students have open days and post-offer days but this year many of them didn’t run properly

 

[Former_Antelopee]

Honestly I don’t see the issue apart from uni places but I think that speaks more for how our application process works and the fact that unis hand out places to people they don’t expect to get in

There’s been some talk of students cheating but the majority of that would be for basic facts (the memory side of things). At A levels everything is about applying those facts and that’s where a lot of people fall short, so no amount of cheating or notes will help them if they can’t apply their information properly and write about it.



The reason Oxbridge interviews work is because they have a college system, so it’s not really having a major impact on all of the teaching staff. The only other university who could maybe make that work is Durham as they also have a college system but it’s run differently so that’s unlikely

I think that’s the reason students have open days and post-offer days but this year many of them didn’t run properly

I don’t see the issue in unis offering places to people they don’t think will get in? Because what if they do get the grades to get in. I know someone who didn’t apply for a top uni because they didn’t think they’d get the results, they did so they ended up going through clearing and got into a much better uni than they originally planned to go. This was before covid. They have to offer these places in my opinion because some who are expected to get in won’t and others are who aren’t expected will. Someone else I know well before covid was predicted CCC and got AAA

 

[Littlemisadoughnut]

I do hope there is some support for next years A Level cohort. They are the year group that didn’t sit their GCSEs and then have had a huge chunk of year 12 disrupted. At our school there are a lot who are developing anxiety around assessments… because they’ve had very little opportunity to practice the experience of sitting an exam, and working out which revision strategies best suit them etc. Because they haven’t needed to do so, ever in some cases.

 

[Unspiralled]

The reason Oxbridge interviews work is because they have a college system, so it’s not really having a major impact on all of the teaching staff. The only other university who could maybe make that work is Durham as they also have a college system but it’s run differently so that’s unlikely

I think that’s the reason students have open days and post-offer days but this year many of them didn’t run properly

I had an interview at Manchester (a few years ago now) which is one of the biggest UK universities in terms of number of undergrads. They were interviewing a huge number of applicants for the course I applied for and related courses, which is clearly a lot of work on their part but they made a point of saying they found it beneficial in the long run because students who are accepted and decide to go have much more realistic expectations than just from the open days.

 

[Former_Antelopee]

Just going to add I went back to uni this year. I’m doing a top-up degree which won’t make any difference to employability but maybe I’ll get a bit more money.
I did it now as I wanted to do it at some point and thought as I couldn’t do much due to covid I may as well get it done now. Covid 100% helped me get a better grade in the first year (part time 2year course). I definitely would have struggled more with working full time plus over time and doing it if it wasn’t for covid making exams open book. If I had done it the year before it would’ve been even better as they didn’t have practical exams either, just a zoom call where they had to explain what they’d do, we still had to go into uni for the practicals.

 

[JRHD11]

A spike in grades was always going to happen this year bc of the nature of the assessments- the assessments put together by exam boards (under government instruction) were tailored by subject/topic/unit within a subject and then made publicly available. Any clued up A-Level student would’ve just looked online and revised the topics on the assessments- I know mine did! It’s how school have used this data though- in my dept I made it very clear that the TAG had to be predominately from the mock result (and so a blind, full set of papers) with mini assessments and other agreed assessments feeding in to it as we knew that this cohort all got inflated results on their exam board mini assessments because they told us they’d looked at the freely available tests as part of their prep/revision. Some schools will have placed more emphasis on the mini assessments though, hence the inflation in grades this year.