David O'Day
Well-Known Member
But lots of those things are going to be taken care of by loans etc which they don't have to worry about.
Coronavirus Thread (Off Topic, Politics) (162 Viewers)
- Thread starter BackRoomRummermill
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But lots of those things are going to be taken care of by loans etc which they don't have to worry about.
Sky_Blue_Dreamer
Well-Known Member
I agree. It may get them into a course or whatever they want now, but if they aren't up to it they will struggle later on and have wasted time getting onto their preferred course when in fact it probably wasn't in their best long term interests to do so.
You can't really say "take the exams later" as the kids have to spend an extra year waiting.
There is no perfect answer but I'd prefer someone given the chance and not be up to it than denied the opportunity when they were.
Sky_Blue_Dreamer
Well-Known Member
If the family are in such dire straits as to not be able to allow their kid a year to get onto the course they feel they deserve and immediately need the kid to get a job to pay for the family home then it's unlikely they'd have the chance to go to uni anyway. Household bills for the parents will mostly be a bit of extra energy and food bills.
If they do have to contribute to the household budget they're probably already doing so via PT work at a supermarket etc, which is a job they already have and although there is a chance they could lose it given the economic situation it's still a better position to be in than looking for a new one in a completely new environment.
Ian1779
Well-Known Member
They were ranked within each grade, but schools weren’t told that a certain amount had to be of each grade. The HOD and SLT may then have been adjusted so the final submission was centre assessment not teacher assessment technically.
skybluetony176
Well-Known Member
shmmeee
Well-Known Member
Was there no standard method for moderating? I’d assume most HoDs would’ve been looking at FFT and GCSE results and past subject performance, I would have if it were me.
Ian1779
Well-Known Member
Yes certainly I did that and I would assume that this happened in most schools. I did some work with our English department as their initial predictions were so out of kilter with their past performance and KS2 prior data that we had to adjust them
The government guidance at the time was non-descript as you’d expect of course.
shmmeee
Well-Known Member
This is what bothers me about the whole “predicted grades” label. Normal predicted grades deserve their reputation but it seems it’s more than sticking a finger in the air and there was some thought given to the data.
Seems nuts that in the age of student data coming out of our ears OfQual went with cohort averages with no regard for cohort to cohort variation let alone individual student data.
LastGarrison
Well-Known Member
LastGarrison
Well-Known Member
Your cousin works in admissions.
fernandopartridge
Well-Known Member
Your cousin works in admissions.
I did try to help DO'D, assume you're still in the same job so therefore have a pretty good handle on this
chiefdave
Well-Known Member
Am I missing something? I just searched for Computer Science, as that was what I studied, and there are no available places at the top ranked unis.Search - UCAS
digital.ucas.com
shmmeee
Well-Known Member
Yeah but if you want to take BA Basket Weaving you’re quids in.
hill83
Well-Known Member
At least you’d have something to put all your eggs in.
Brighton Sky Blue
Well-Known Member
Back in the country from Greece. I spent some time filling in the world beating PLF form the government says is mandatory for it not to be needed.
chiefdave
Well-Known Member
Saw reports at the weekend that people who were arriving back in the country and supposed to be quarantining were being told they could go shopping!
David O'Day
Well-Known Member
Cool i'll take the word of the head of the Russell Group and Universities UK over some bloke online who a few weeks ago was telling us that teh whole of the CV post code was likely to be locked down.
Don't give a fuck what he does he's a man with a record of talking bullshit and is rightly to be scoffed at and frankly ignored.
David O'Day
Well-Known Member
Popular courses at top unis are very dry on the clearing website
Brighton Sky Blue
Well-Known Member
It isn’t enforced anyway. Unlike the jobsworth twat in London who wouldn’t let me on a train an hour before the one it said on my ticket
LastGarrison
Well-Known Member
Says the man who ran off to his mate in the council and then his cousin to try and put his argument across on an an Internet forum.
Did you run off to Mummy to ask her whether I should be scoffed and ignored?
Fact is you know fuck all about it. If you want me to pull your pants down on this I am more than happy to?
LastGarrison
Well-Known Member
As has been said the top uni’s are going to fill up quicker and for instance the Uni of Birmingham came out of clearing completely at 12pm on Thursday.
In clearing previously it has always been the Uni’s with the lower tariff points who picked up the most students, followed by the middle tariff points unis followed by the high tariff point unis which makes complete sense, however, this year has been a complete change and the higher tariff point Uni’s have picked up the most, followed by the lowest then the middle.
Exeter have recruited 2000 students over their cap so they obviously either knew it was being lifted or were prepared to take on the OFS or their outgoing VC just didn’t care!
Kings usually recruit about 4.5k students a year but this year they are aiming for 6.5k. Like I say the RG unis have cleaned up.
Acceptances were up by roughly 1% prior to clearing which makes sense as uni’s were nervous about COVID so were locking students in but I believe students placed in clearing is something like 10k down year on year.
It has been a clusterfuck from start to finish and unfortunately some students aren’t going to get their place on their first choice courses this year regardless of being able to use their predicted grades due to individual course caps.
Courses like medicine, nursing, physio, Architecture etc. have caps on numbers due to mandatory placements or accreditations so if Uni’s have rejected students based on the algorithm and then filled their places with other students then the original students who have now met the entry requirements based on their predicted grades won’t get in to their preferred courses at their firm choices as their places have gone.
This leaves students having to go through clearing to other unis or defer their places to next year which will then have a knock on effect on the numbers of 2021 A-level students as there will be less places.
Like I say, a mess.
skybluesam66
Well-Known Member
While I am not close enough to it , however judging by the very high pass rates, there will be a lot of students who must have been very fortunate
Ring Of Steel
Well-Known Member
So basically are you saying that all the better places at the better universities are full? Aren’t you actually saying the same as DOD?
At an individual level it is impossible to tell but at an aggregate level grades are inflated by over 40% since they have reverted back from the 40% adjustment. It is worth noting that even in the adjustment there would have been growth in the top grades, so this is mayhem.
I feel sorry for the genuinely capable who will have had their qualifications devalued. I also feel sorry for next year's cohort who are competing against a cohort with artificially inflated grades. No doubt if things return to normality with respect to grade thresholds, there will be legitimate concerns from the 2021 cohort about how unfair it was to be competing against students who have not had to take the exams but have reapplied. In trying to please everybody, I fear that more will be left disappointed. Unless one takes the view that this year's cohort are exceptional.
LastGarrison
Well-Known Member
No.
1) He said was said there were no places left at universities. There’s literally 10’s of thousands.
2) Check the clearing link there are still places at some high ranking universities such as Bristol, Birmingham, Leicester, Liverpool etc.
3) With the lifting of the cap universities can now take on more home students and have been very resourceful re COVID by extending teaching hours across the day and weekend, utilising the space usually taken by professional services as teaching space as they continue to work from home etc.
4) Believe it or not, not everyone gets into a top uni so someone who has just been place at Bedfordshire through clearing could if they meet the grades self release and go to say Worcester, someone who was placed at Worcester as their insurance could technically go and look at an Essex or Nottingham Trent and so on.
David O'Day
Well-Known Member
pretty much, still he's the "expert"
skybluetony176
Well-Known Member
More jobs for the boys McKinsey banks £560,000 consulting on “vision, purpose and narrative” for new test and trace body
You couldn’t make this shit up. It also means Boris was telling everyone that there would be a world beating track and trace system in place by June when he knew full well there wouldn’t be as the consultation that they were paying for was still on going.
You couldn’t make this shit up. It also means Boris was telling everyone that there would be a world beating track and trace system in place by June when he knew full well there wouldn’t be as the consultation that they were paying for was still on going.
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shmmeee
Well-Known Member
Interesting read: Long-Haulers Are Redefining COVID-19
fernandopartridge
Well-Known Member
The amount of money the McKinseys of this world leach from the public purse beggared belief. I was working on a programme that basically paid £1.3m for a few slide decks.
chiefdave
Well-Known Member
Back to the grading fiasco, interesting piece on the BBC site.
One line that stood out to me was "the process has been made more difficult because universities themselves have yet to be granted access to upgraded results, so the university has put its admissions process on hold until they receive them".
And another piece from the BBC.
What a mess.
A-levels U-turn: Universities facing 'crazy demand' from students
Thousands of students now have the A-level grades to get their first-choice course, but can universities still help them?
www.bbc.co.uk
And another piece from the BBC.
Durham University students offered money to defer after exams U-turn
Durham University says it will struggle to provide sufficient places amid the A-levels grading fiasco.
www.bbc.co.uk
I have heard many stories of students who by heir own admission admit they were not going to reach their predicted grades this year stating that they will 'have a go' for Medical schools and other top university courses. It was a catastrophic decision to cancel the exams.
As much as I disagreed with the algorithm, the reversion to teachers' grades is causing much more problems, for years down the line, than the algorithm ever would have.Back to the grading fiasco, interesting piece on the BBC site.
One line that stood out to me was "the process has been made more difficult because universities themselves have yet to be granted access to upgraded results, so the university has put its admissions process on hold until they receive them".A-levels U-turn: Universities facing 'crazy demand' from students
Thousands of students now have the A-level grades to get their first-choice course, but can universities still help them?www.bbc.co.uk
And another piece from the BBC.
What a mess.Durham University students offered money to defer after exams U-turn
Durham University says it will struggle to provide sufficient places amid the A-levels grading fiasco.www.bbc.co.uk
At least with the non inflated results, there would have been a legitimate basis for students who did not sit the exam to reapply to university, say 'look, it wasn't my fault that the algorithm judged me, give me a chance to prove to you by taking the exam'. The appeals process would have taken a long time, but it would have been much more equitable. Now, we have, at an aggregate level, a cohort that is overqualified (by definition exams level the playing field); who will deny worthy students next year and potentially years to come a place they have earned at university; and who are potentially setting themselves up for failure by being on paper qualified for things they otherwise would not qualify for.
I know of people who by heir own admission have received the predicted grades they would otherwise not have been capable of cramming for. They get the benefit of the doubt, but at the expense of students from next year. I feel sorry for those who remained downgraded by their teachers' predictions - they've not done any less than those who have been handed the top grades, yet they find themselves in a situation where they will probably have to go to some retake centre or FE college (which themselves are likely to be drained of cash in view of the fact that most people will be flocking to sixth forms with their inflated grades). They have been left behind through no fault of their own.
Also, the knock on effect will be massive. Tomorrow's GCSE results will qualify thousands more for sixth forms when they otherwise would not have, and it does no one any favours. Sixth forms are going to be overloaded, in a year where we are meant to be socially distancing.
shmmeee
Well-Known Member
Doesn’t everyone qualify for sixth form or college anyway now the leaving age is 18? Surely the capacity is there, it’s just the courses? In which case if everyone’s inflated then it all trickles down and you just up the requirements.
As soon as the exams were cancelled there was going to be issues.
Sky_Blue_Dreamer
Well-Known Member
Neither way is ideal but I prefer the one that gives them the opportunity than the one that denies it.
It's not like these people are now just being told "you start as a doctor Monday". They've still got a very long and arduous course to get through to qualify over the next seven years. If they're not good enough they'll be found out on that. But surely that is a much fairer way of separation than saying "you didn't get the necessary grades because computer said no, so you can't even get on the course"
So using the predicted grades as opposed to an algorithm that randomly downgrades people not on their own ability but the school they went seems a much fairer way of dealing with it IMO.
Agree completely that if it was done at the outset, teachers' predicted grades was the way to go, with some adjustment to apply to all grades to deflate them back to normality. It would help if there was some kind of grading system that ranked by percentiles rather than arbitrary cutoff. The problem is that university places are fixed whereas the attainment levels have been allowed to rise. So going forward employers/universities will have to look at this year in isolation and hold this year's cohort to a higher standard (which itself is not ideal and is unfair for many groups, especially those whose teachers predicted accurately).
Which takes me back to the idea that the only fair way was to do the exams, which are socially distanced by definition. Individual outcomes achieved, with no one held back by their school etc. Grades in line with before and not devalued, with perhaps a more complex appeals process to account for grievances during the COVID period. What surprises me is how ill-thought the decision to cancel have proved to be, especially given that the decision was announced before lockdown.