GCSE results

[Skeptisk]

It seems that they have reversed grade inflation somewhat as results have fallen this year.

Personally I think the wrong approach is taken to grading. It would be better to fix the percentages of students getting each grade eg the best 10% get an A. That would be more meaningful for those trying to interpret grades. The same should apply for universities. A first should be an exception for the top 5% - 10%. If the percentages are fixed then there would be less incentive to make exams easier to show a constant improvement every year.

[Rivenink]

Skeptisk said:

It seems that they have reversed grade inflation somewhat as results have fallen this year.

Personally I think the wrong approach is taken to grading. It would be better to fix the percentages of students getting each grade eg the best 10% get an A. That would be more meaningful for those trying to interpret grades. The same should apply for universities. A first should be an exception for the top 5% - 10%. If the percentages are fixed then there would be less incentive to make exams easier to show a constant improvement every year.

I don't think you get it.

The exams and grades arn't there for students, universities and employers.

They're for schools and Govrnment to trumpet how great they're doing, how much value for money is being delivered, and measure the performance of teachers training kids to pass exams so that you can set unrealistic targets to make sure they work 14 hours a day and burn out after a few years.

/s

[boyse7en]

Rivenink said:

Skeptisk said:

It seems that they have reversed grade inflation somewhat as results have fallen this year.

Personally I think the wrong approach is taken to grading. It would be better to fix the percentages of students getting each grade eg the best 10% get an A. That would be more meaningful for those trying to interpret grades. The same should apply for universities. A first should be an exception for the top 5% - 10%. If the percentages are fixed then there would be less incentive to make exams easier to show a constant improvement every year.

I don't think you get it.

The exams and grades arn't there for students, universities and employers.

They're for schools and Govrnment to trumpet how great they're doing, how much value for money is being delivered, and measure the performance of teachers training kids to pass exams.

/s

If that was the case this years results wouldn't be worse than the previous years', those with a vested interest in improvements would ensure that exam results are always better.

[Eyersey1234]

Also let's not forget grades were inflated during 2020/1 due to Covid

[spikyone]

Skeptisk said:

It seems that they have reversed grade inflation somewhat as results have fallen this year.

Personally I think the wrong approach is taken to grading. It would be better to fix the percentages of students getting each grade eg the best 10% get an A. That would be more meaningful for those trying to interpret grades. The same should apply for universities. A first should be an exception for the top 5% - 10%. If the percentages are fixed then there would be less incentive to make exams easier to show a constant improvement every year.

The issue here has been caused by the idiotic approach of basing Covid-era grades on teacher predictions, when they should have taken an approach similar to that suggestion e.g. if in a particular school, prior to Covid, on average the top 5% had gained an A, that should have been applied for the last couple of years. It's imperfect but would have been at least half way realistic, and could have been corrected if a school showed an upwards trend year-on-year.

Instead, predicted grades were used - as ever these were optimistic and led to a lot of complaints that students were being hard done by when they were initially corrected downwards to give gradings more in line with previous years (lots of typical 21st century "it's not fair"). Those in charge should never have caved to the complaints - they should have pointed to a data-driven approach to show that teachers were being optimistic with their predicted grades, and perhaps more so than usual.

The aberration here is the past couple of years, not the current results, and reporting year-on-year changes without that context is a bit daft.

I'm not in favour of grades being a fixed percentage each year as long as marking can be made consistent, because you lose any sort of benchmark between years. It would've been a preferable approach during Covid to use percentages (on a school-by-school basis) but that ship has sailed.

[i4got]

Skeptisk said:

It seems that they have reversed grade inflation somewhat as results have fallen this year.

Personally I think the wrong approach is taken to grading. It would be better to fix the percentages of students getting each grade eg the best 10% get an A. That would be more meaningful for those trying to interpret grades. The same should apply for universities. A first should be an exception for the top 5% - 10%. If the percentages are fixed then there would be less incentive to make exams easier to show a constant improvement every year.

But then comparing year on year would not make sense. Take two people - one with an A and one with a B. If they were taken on different years then the person with the B could actually have got a higher mark that the person with the A?

[Stick Legs]

I think that’s a record for a thread.

Normally you get to page 3 or 4 before some chippy idiot launches themselves into full froth mode.

This time, first response!

I stuck my head in here because my daughter just got her results today, what she needs for her A-Level course but a little lower in one or two subjects than she hoped for.
I wanted to see if others had similar experiences.

From what I can see of her work & effort vs her grades it seems much more akin to when I sat GCSE. Rather than the ‘9 A** across the board’ stuff often quoted.

[Mrr T]

spikyone said:

Skeptisk said:

It seems that they have reversed grade inflation somewhat as results have fallen this year.

Personally I think the wrong approach is taken to grading. It would be better to fix the percentages of students getting each grade eg the best 10% get an A. That would be more meaningful for those trying to interpret grades. The same should apply for universities. A first should be an exception for the top 5% - 10%. If the percentages are fixed then there would be less incentive to make exams easier to show a constant improvement every year.

The issue here has been caused by the idiotic approach of basing Covid-era grades on teacher predictions, when they should have taken an approach similar to that suggestion e.g. if in a particular school, prior to Covid, on average the top 5% had gained an A, that should have been applied for the last couple of years. It's imperfect but would have been at least half way realistic, and could have been corrected if a school showed an upwards trend year-on-year.

Instead, predicted grades were used - as ever these were optimistic and led to a lot of complaints that students were being hard done by when they were initially corrected downwards to give gradings more in line with previous years (lots of typical 21st century "it's not fair"). Those in charge should never have caved to the complaints - they should have pointed to a data-driven approach to show that teachers were being optimistic with their predicted grades, and perhaps more so than usual.

The aberration here is the past couple of years, not the current results, and reporting year-on-year changes without that context is a bit daft.

I'm not in favour of grades being a fixed percentage each year as long as marking can be made consistent, because you lose any sort of benchmark between years. It would've been a preferable approach during Covid to use percentages (on a school-by-school basis) but that ship has sailed.

So during Covid you would have awarded grades to students based on the grades given to completely different students rather than teachers who actually know the pupils?

They tried that it did not work out well.

[anonymous-user]

My daughter got her results today, she got exactly the results she predicted she would get. I still cannot get my head around the grades, I got mostly Cs when I did them when the highest was an A, but a C is equivalent to a four out of nine grade today.

When she started I said I would give her £15 per point which is going to cost me a chunk of money now!

[Stick Legs]

Regarding grading there is no perfect system.

My professional written exams use a system where you loose 10% for a clerical error (2+9=12) and 25% for a principle error (2x9=11).
This means you effectively start with 100% & get deducted as your marking goes through your work.
60% pass mark.
Plus you have to pass all papers together.
It’s overly harsh & archaic but respected.

I think that the onus being more on exam than course work favours the bright rather than the diligent.

As an employer I’d much rather have someone who can stay the course & be consistent rather than a bright but lazy candidate who can pull it out the bag when needed.

To qualify the ‘bright but lazy’ remark that was me, I didn’t study, fluked the exam, moved on.
I wouldn’t have employed 18 year old me.

Glad someone did!

[spikyone]

Mrr T said:

spikyone said:

Skeptisk said:

It seems that they have reversed grade inflation somewhat as results have fallen this year.

Personally I think the wrong approach is taken to grading. It would be better to fix the percentages of students getting each grade eg the best 10% get an A. That would be more meaningful for those trying to interpret grades. The same should apply for universities. A first should be an exception for the top 5% - 10%. If the percentages are fixed then there would be less incentive to make exams easier to show a constant improvement every year.

The issue here has been caused by the idiotic approach of basing Covid-era grades on teacher predictions, when they should have taken an approach similar to that suggestion e.g. if in a particular school, prior to Covid, on average the top 5% had gained an A, that should have been applied for the last couple of years. It's imperfect but would have been at least half way realistic, and could have been corrected if a school showed an upwards trend year-on-year.

Instead, predicted grades were used - as ever these were optimistic and led to a lot of complaints that students were being hard done by when they were initially corrected downwards to give gradings more in line with previous years (lots of typical 21st century "it's not fair"). Those in charge should never have caved to the complaints - they should have pointed to a data-driven approach to show that teachers were being optimistic with their predicted grades, and perhaps more so than usual.

The aberration here is the past couple of years, not the current results, and reporting year-on-year changes without that context is a bit daft.

I'm not in favour of grades being a fixed percentage each year as long as marking can be made consistent, because you lose any sort of benchmark between years. It would've been a preferable approach during Covid to use percentages (on a school-by-school basis) but that ship has sailed.

So during Covid you would have awarded grades to students based on the grades given to completely different students rather than teachers who actually know the pupils?

They tried that it did not work out well.

It "didn't work out well" because teachers estimated far higher grades than students had achieved in previous year groups (which were coincidentally also far higher grades than students achieved this year). When those predictions were ignored and a more realistic distribution was used it "wasn't fair" - even though those predictions were very obviously optimistic and there was no rationale for the complaints beyond students not being awarded the optimistic grades their teachers had predicted.

The overall spread of results, for a particular school with particular teachers, is unlikely to change significantly from year to year. You could correct for a group of students being particularly good/bad to an extent by looking at previous testing results obtained by those students, and by looking at underlying trends - a school performing better/worse over time. The predicted grades were farcically optimistic and clearly did not reflect teachers knowing their pupils.

[Skeptisk]

i4got said:

Skeptisk said:

It seems that they have reversed grade inflation somewhat as results have fallen this year.

Personally I think the wrong approach is taken to grading. It would be better to fix the percentages of students getting each grade eg the best 10% get an A. That would be more meaningful for those trying to interpret grades. The same should apply for universities. A first should be an exception for the top 5% - 10%. If the percentages are fixed then there would be less incentive to make exams easier to show a constant improvement every year.

But then comparing year on year would not make sense. Take two people - one with an A and one with a B. If they were taken on different years then the person with the B could actually have got a higher mark that the person with the A?

Even if you try to make exams equally hard (or easy!) each year that isn’t possible so you can’t compare marks directly. However, you can compare your position. You see it all the time in sport eg you don’t say someone should get a gold medal because their time in the final last year was faster than the winning time this year.

No system is perfect and there are always advantages and disadvantages. I just think that fixing the percentage who receive each grade makes them more comparable between years and stops grade inflation.

[anonymous-user]

Friends daughter got 10 x grade 9. Impressive put a lot of hours in

[clarkey]

First of all, well done to all the kids with results, it might be a right kick in the nuts to hear us old blokes moaning about it every year!
I would change the system to something they'll discover when they leave education, where they are compared to others with more privilege and advantage. I'd have split percentages like this:

A*: 1%
A: 9%
B: 20%
C: 40%
D: 20%
E: 9%
F: 1%

So do it as a normal distribution, where the majority get grades B to D, and only the exceptional get A and A*. Do this nationally so it works regardless of the number taking the test. It would be great to make it clear that a grade was in the top 10% nationally in my opinion.

Won't happen though, governments and schools need grade inflation, even if it doesn't improve education standards.

[poo at Paul's]

Skeptisk said:

Personally I think the wrong approach is taken to grading. It would be better to fix the percentages of students getting each grade eg the best 10% get an A. That would be more meaningful for those trying to interpret grades. The same should apply for universities. A first should be an exception for the top 5% - 10%. If the percentages are fixed then there would be less incentive to make exams easier to show a constant improvement every year.

That is in fact sort of how it is done. They mark all the papers, then the exam board look at the results and see where to set the grade boundaries so that x percent get a 9, x percent an 8 etc. That's why the grand boundaries vary year by year.

The problem is, whilst it may purport to account for "tough exam papers" , (ie if everyone struggles it suggests it is a har dpaper), it doesnt account for thick or lazy year's students, or poor teaching / teaching impacted by strikes etc.

[Mrr T]

spikyone said:

Mrr T said:

spikyone said:

Skeptisk said:

It seems that they have reversed grade inflation somewhat as results have fallen this year.

Personally I think the wrong approach is taken to grading. It would be better to fix the percentages of students getting each grade eg the best 10% get an A. That would be more meaningful for those trying to interpret grades. The same should apply for universities. A first should be an exception for the top 5% - 10%. If the percentages are fixed then there would be less incentive to make exams easier to show a constant improvement every year.

The issue here has been caused by the idiotic approach of basing Covid-era grades on teacher predictions, when they should have taken an approach similar to that suggestion e.g. if in a particular school, prior to Covid, on average the top 5% had gained an A, that should have been applied for the last couple of years. It's imperfect but would have been at least half way realistic, and could have been corrected if a school showed an upwards trend year-on-year.

Instead, predicted grades were used - as ever these were optimistic and led to a lot of complaints that students were being hard done by when they were initially corrected downwards to give gradings more in line with previous years (lots of typical 21st century "it's not fair"). Those in charge should never have caved to the complaints - they should have pointed to a data-driven approach to show that teachers were being optimistic with their predicted grades, and perhaps more so than usual.

The aberration here is the past couple of years, not the current results, and reporting year-on-year changes without that context is a bit daft.

I'm not in favour of grades being a fixed percentage each year as long as marking can be made consistent, because you lose any sort of benchmark between years. It would've been a preferable approach during Covid to use percentages (on a school-by-school basis) but that ship has sailed.

So during Covid you would have awarded grades to students based on the grades given to completely different students rather than teachers who actually know the pupils?

They tried that it did not work out well.

It "didn't work out well" because teachers estimated far higher grades than students had achieved in previous year groups (which were coincidentally also far higher grades than students achieved this year). When those predictions were ignored and a more realistic distribution was used it "wasn't fair" - even though those predictions were very obviously optimistic and there was no rationale for the complaints beyond students not being awarded the optimistic grades their teachers had predicted.

The overall spread of results, for a particular school with particular teachers, is unlikely to change significantly from year to year. You could correct for a group of students being particularly good/bad to an extent by looking at previous testing results obtained by those students, and by looking at underlying trends - a school performing better/worse over time. The predicted grades were farcically optimistic and clearly did not reflect teachers knowing their pupils.

Except the initial system adjusted the teachers grades to take account of school performance. This proved disastrous and was dropped.

Applying previous results might have some justification although it would discriminate against improving schools. However, it totally breaks down at an individual pupil level. One year may have no very bright student, another 2 or more. The average might be the same across all the years. So marking down on an average will significantly reduce the grade of any bright students in an average, or lower performing school.

[spikyone]

Mrr T said:

spikyone said:

Mrr T said:

spikyone said:

Skeptisk said:

It seems that they have reversed grade inflation somewhat as results have fallen this year.

Personally I think the wrong approach is taken to grading. It would be better to fix the percentages of students getting each grade eg the best 10% get an A. That would be more meaningful for those trying to interpret grades. The same should apply for universities. A first should be an exception for the top 5% - 10%. If the percentages are fixed then there would be less incentive to make exams easier to show a constant improvement every year.

The issue here has been caused by the idiotic approach of basing Covid-era grades on teacher predictions, when they should have taken an approach similar to that suggestion e.g. if in a particular school, prior to Covid, on average the top 5% had gained an A, that should have been applied for the last couple of years. It's imperfect but would have been at least half way realistic, and could have been corrected if a school showed an upwards trend year-on-year.

Instead, predicted grades were used - as ever these were optimistic and led to a lot of complaints that students were being hard done by when they were initially corrected downwards to give gradings more in line with previous years (lots of typical 21st century "it's not fair"). Those in charge should never have caved to the complaints - they should have pointed to a data-driven approach to show that teachers were being optimistic with their predicted grades, and perhaps more so than usual.

The aberration here is the past couple of years, not the current results, and reporting year-on-year changes without that context is a bit daft.

I'm not in favour of grades being a fixed percentage each year as long as marking can be made consistent, because you lose any sort of benchmark between years. It would've been a preferable approach during Covid to use percentages (on a school-by-school basis) but that ship has sailed.

So during Covid you would have awarded grades to students based on the grades given to completely different students rather than teachers who actually know the pupils?

They tried that it did not work out well.

It "didn't work out well" because teachers estimated far higher grades than students had achieved in previous year groups (which were coincidentally also far higher grades than students achieved this year). When those predictions were ignored and a more realistic distribution was used it "wasn't fair" - even though those predictions were very obviously optimistic and there was no rationale for the complaints beyond students not being awarded the optimistic grades their teachers had predicted.

The overall spread of results, for a particular school with particular teachers, is unlikely to change significantly from year to year. You could correct for a group of students being particularly good/bad to an extent by looking at previous testing results obtained by those students, and by looking at underlying trends - a school performing better/worse over time. The predicted grades were farcically optimistic and clearly did not reflect teachers knowing their pupils.

Except the initial system adjusted the teachers grades to take account of school performance. This proved disastrous and was dropped.

Applying previous results might have some justification although it would discriminate against improving schools. However, it totally breaks down at an individual pupil level. One year may have no very bright student, another 2 or more. The average might be the same across all the years. So marking down on an average will significantly reduce the grade of any bright students in an average, or lower performing school.

It didn't prove disastrous at all - it just resulted in lots of complaints from people who didn't get the overly-optimistic grades that teachers had predicted for them. There was nothing fundamentally wrong with it, whereas the huge jump and subsequent drop in grades caused by use of predicted grades is hugely problematic for a number of fairly obvious reasons.

Conversely, your suggestion that using a distribution-based system would work against individual bright students also works the other way - it could also increase the results of complete dimwits. But in general the distribution is likely to be similar from year to year and realistically, is only likely to disadvantage a tiny number of students by a single grade level (e.g. A to B or whatever the current equivalent is) at most. That could've been easily accounted for by FE/HE institutions allowing a little leeway or placing greater emphasis on entrance interviews - since we're talking about potentially disadvantaging the brightest, that's the only place it would have a significant impact.

[poo at Paul's]

Joey Deacon said:

My daughter got her results today, she got exactly the results she predicted she would get. I still cannot get my head around the grades, I got mostly Cs when I did them when the highest was an A, but a C is equivalent to a four out of nine grade today.

When she started I said I would give her £15 per point which is going to cost me a chunk of money now!

We have a similar scheme, it was 300 for a 9 150 for an 8, 100 for a 7 and 75 for a 6. Just worked out I’m on the hook for over 1300 sheets!

[rustyuk]

My son sits his exams in 7 months. Seems unfair that they will not be given any dispensation for the 2 years of Covid.

[Mrr T]

spikyone said:

It didn't prove disastrous at all - it just resulted in lots of complaints from people who didn't get the overly-optimistic grades that teachers had predicted for them. There was nothing fundamentally wrong with it, whereas the huge jump and subsequent drop in grades caused by use of predicted grades is hugely problematic for a number of fairly obvious reasons.

Conversely, your suggestion that using a distribution-based system would work against individual bright students also works the other way - it could also increase the results of complete dimwits. But in general the distribution is likely to be similar from year to year and realistically, is only likely to disadvantage a tiny number of students by a single grade level (e.g. A to B or whatever the current equivalent is) at most. That could've been easily accounted for by FE/HE institutions allowing a little leeway or placing greater emphasis on entrance interviews - since we're talking about potentially disadvantaging the brightest, that's the only place it would have a significant impact.

It certainly proved disastrous for the government who quickly backed down. I am sure some complaints had little justification but there where am many complaints from bright pupils show grades were reduced because pupils in previous years where not as clever.

The idea of letting those who where incorrectly down graded, a problem which would have an affect on them realising their abilities, just so the percentages looked similar was not acceptable.