Exam Shambles

Image source: thesun.co.uk

Since A-Level results have been published in England, there has been widespread protest and outrage about the allocation of grades to pupils on the basis of a clearly biased algorithm, favouring those from more privileged areas over students from more disadvantaged areas as it is based on schools' previous performance rather than honouring the predicted grades given by teachers.

Teachers had to rank students depending on the likelihood of students achieving each grade, using evidence including mocks, unit tests, and in some cases KS2 SATS results. For example, out of the students who were predicted Grade 9s, the student with the top rank would have had the highest probability of achieving a Grade 9, whereas the student with the bottom rank might have been just as likely to achieve a Grade 8 as a Grade 9. When the government's standardisation came into effect, many students who were lower down on the ranks moved down and achieved much lower grades to make sure that the distribution of grades reflected the previous cohort's achievement. 

The grade distribution for every cohort was largely influenced by the school's performance in 2019, rather than an average of the school's historic performance over the last few years. The problem with this is that many students with high potential and high predicted grades got downgraded very harshly, with some students even receiving Us (without taking the exams!), purely to match last year's grade distribution in their schools. Far too many students missed out on university offers because of this, despite all the evidence suggesting they would achieve much better grades.

Private schools, with both small cohorts and high historic results, have obviously been less affected by this system. Whilst most teacher predictions state schools seem to have been downgraded regarding A/A* grades, private schools have seen a 4.7% increase instead. However, even though private schools seem to have benefited overall, this doesn't mean that there haven't been lots of individual cases of unjust downgrading where people received lower grades than their mocks, although the scale of this is nowhere near the extent to which state schools have been affected. Yes, students who received lower grades than their mocks can appeal, but so many people who missed their university grades were told that even if their appeal was successful, it would be too late to get a place so they would have to defer until 2021, or simply that they had missed their offer and that was the end of that. 

That's my attempt at summarising the shambles that Gavin Williamson has created for sixteen and seventeen-year-olds in the UK. I'm a GCSE student, set to receive my results next Thursday, which I'm not exactly excited for, given the disaster that was A-Level results day. 

I am very lucky to be able to go to a private school so I know and accept that my results are more likely to be the same as my teachers' predictions than someone who worked just as hard but goes to a state school in a less privileged area. Because of this, I have very mixed and conflicting feelings about my results, and I know a lot of my friends from my school feel the same way.

My predicted grades are quite good, and I feel like if I had taken the exams I would have achieved them as I got similar grades in my mocks (which were mostly based on previous exam papers) and I'm relatively hardworking. I'll definitely be ecstatic if I actually receive these grades on Thursday.

However, at the same time, because I am in a more privileged position than many people who are just as hardworking and would have achieved similar grades but go to schools which have lower 2019 results, I feel an overwhelming sense of guilt that I am a lot more likely to achieve these predictions. If I do receive my teachers' predicted grades, I know that I won't be completely proud of myself. 

The rankings that teachers have given are based on your effort throughout the past two years. But when you know for a fact that the only reason you actually received your predicted grades is because of both luck and the school you went to, it's hard to believe that they were achieved through your own hard work, when many others deserved the grades that you received. 

The anger is palpable on social media, particularly on Twitter. People are understandably furious that private schools seem to have received preferential treatment from the algorithm, calling for private schools to be abolished and accusing the government of being classist and elitist, which does seem to be the case. Gavin Williamson justified the downgrading caused by the algorithm by saying he didn't want state school students to be 'promoted beyond their abilities'. What about Gavin himself? He used to be the defence secretary, and now he's in charge of children's futures with no experience of teaching at all. I doubt he even knows what mock exams are and that pupils' grades usually improve after taking them.

I completely understand the outrage over this injustice, but I feel like certain people are demonising private school kids simply for existing when it isn't their fault that the algorithm has been such a failure, or that their parents sent them to a private school in the first place. Privately educated children have many unfair advantages, which have been made clear in situations like this one, but I don't think hateful comments towards the children themselves will do anything to solve this. 

Overall, I am completely aware that awarding grades to students who did not take exams and in the middle of a global pandemic is a difficult task. But surely the government could have decided on a better, less discriminatory strategy, without coming up with a rushed appeals system to combat a problematic algorithm one day before A-level results day? After all, they had almost six months! The government seems to procrastinate more than I do on my physics homework. That's quite bad.