The A-level grades business has truly opened a can of worms. My brother-in-law re-posted this tweet from someone or other:
“So.. my neighbour got a predicted A from her teacher, B in her mock ... and was given an E. A kid from the private school on he next road got a C in her mock, a predicted B and was awarded an A*.
Just ...? Kids, you’ll be of voting age in the next general election. Remember.”
That seems to be the brunt of the problem.
Pundits are saying, well, some private school grades were also lowered but ... it does seem to be mostly state schools.
And now there is some question about possibly cancelling the appeals procedure.
Friends of mine who are still teaching, and especially still teaching A-level, are posting all sorts of explanations of the system and protests at the evident unfairness.
And I find myself getting annoyed at the terminology used. First of all many state schools are being described as “poor schools”, which is a sweeping generalisation that is totally unfair to teachers and students alike. They may be in “poor”, ie deprived, areas but the schools and colleges (in other words the teachers and students) are probably, no, undoubtedly, working their socks off to do as well as possible. Having less money does not mean having less intelligence!
Then there is the talk about “exam results”. These are not “exam” results because exams were not sat, they are awarded grades and should be referred to as such!
Part of the problem is the attempt to make this seem like a normal year and last Thursday a normal results day. A-Level results are traditionally announced on the second Thursday in August. This has given time for masses of exam papers, from exams sat in May as a rule, to be marked and moderated, and for grade boundaries (which vary from year to year and are not set in stone as some of the commentators appear to think) to be decided and quibbled over.
None of that has happened this year.
Teachers assessed their students’ progress, suggested grades those students should award and put said students in rank order. Then along came the algorithm and caused chaos. But there was surely no need to wait until the normal “results day” to announce that chaos. The proposed adjustments could surely have been sent to the schools and colleges weeks ago so that they could make the necessary ensuing protests and appeals. And a bunch of 18 year olds, who we must remember are no longer really children but young adults, could have been spared a lot of heartache!
A bit of forward planning was needed.
That’s my take on it all anyway!
Next Thursday, the traditional GCSE results day, another set of non-results will be announced. This time many more students will be involved and they will be wanting to dash off to the sixth form colleges they have applied to in order to check that they still have a place on the A-Level or vocational course of their choice. Because that’s how the system has worked for years and years and that’s how it will continue to work as we pretend that 2020 is just another year.
I truly do not know what the solution is but trying to fit an oddly shaped package onto the normal opening - square pegs in round holes and so on - does not appear to be working. Someone suggested putting everything on hold, letting the students sit the exams, and then starting the academic year in January. And yes, I recognise that that would not necessarily be fair either! But some kind of radical re-thinking needs to be done.
Phil and I are simply very thankful that our teenage grandchildren don’t sit GCSE and A-Level exams until 2021, by which time we hope the system might have been sorted out and the youngsters concerned will have had some time to get back into the “normal” routine of things. We shall see. These are indeed strange times.
Life goes on. Stay safe and well, everyone?
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