It's not just about Brexit

[Bordeauxclaret]

Fair play to anyone who wants to take the time to try and depend this farce.
We had people doing it with the Durham trip so it’s not surprising.

[Steve-Harpers-perm]

Gavin Williamson, as Education Secretary should have been all over this. I don't believe for one minute that Ofqual didn't inform the DfE of how they were going to operate and someone should have spotted the obvious flaw.

I think Gavin Williamson would struggle to be all over anything!

[Burnley Ace]

I spent last week trying to sort Uni places out for the 40% of our A Level cohort who had their grades downgraded and who were plunged into uncertainty. We made every effort to align our results almost exactly with the last 3 years of data and in my class alone I still had a third of grades altered. The end result was still the same numerical data but with some student's grades moved up and down. We were told there was no chance of a u-turn on this.

4 days later and we have that u-turn. To be described as just incompetent should be seen as a huge compliment to this shower.

Were you (your school) given any information on how this algorithm would work? Did you have any students getting their grades moved up? Did class size and the numbers entered per subject make a significant difference?

[Burnley Ace]

Gavin Williamson, as Education Secretary should have been all over this. I don't believe for one minute that Ofqual didn't inform the DfE of how they were going to operate and someone should have spotted the obvious flaw.

There were reports months ago about over generous predictions and that relying on predictions alone wasn’t equitable. Hence my question to ksr - you would have expected this algorithm to have been tested and discussed months ago.

[TheFamilyCat]

Was the algorithm ever described as "world beating"?

[ksrclaret]

Were you (your school) given any information on how this algorithm would work? Did you have any students getting their grades moved up? Did class size and the numbers entered per subject make a significant difference?

1. We were told that the centre assessed grades (CAGs) we submitted would be subject to moderation and that this would take into account the previous 3-4 years of data. That seemed logical and fair to prevent every student being awarded an A*. When we submitted the grades we also had to submit a ranking for each class, so that if grades were altered it would be those at the bottom of the ranking for an A grade that would be moved on to a B.

2. There was one student I know of where the grade was moved up (just so happened to be my class).

3. Yes, it came out later on Thursday that those subjects and classes with less than 15 students per class were not subject to any moderation and the CAGs submitted by the class teacher would stand. You can imagine how much this has benefited independent schools whose main selling point is small class sizes. Very unfair to the students in my class, just to use my own example, as I had 17.

[KateR]

Gavin Williamson, as Education Secretary should have been all over this. I don't believe for one minute that Ofqual didn't inform the DfE of how they were going to operate and someone should have spotted the obvious flaw.

I would expect nothing less from you in your thinking.

Obvious flaws are always so easy when you have the information handed to you after the facts have emerged, clearly in that even the famous blind man on a galloping horse could see, yet the "independent body" setting the algorithm didn't see it but you think the Education Secretary should have.

I am in no way trying to justify the issue with the results and agree that it could have and should have been much better but it wasn't, there is a reason behind that and it certainly wasn't all Gavin Williamson fault.

[jrgbfc]

Anyone else get the feeling rhe "independent body" who came up with the algorithm idea is Dominic Cummings?

[evensteadiereddie]

Absolute nonsense, KR - it is his responsibility to listen to all interested parties and agree a concensus or make an informed decision himself.
He did neither. An absolute joke - even his party colleagues accept his inadequacy.

[evensteadiereddie]

Anyone else get the feeling rhe "independent body" who came up with the algorithm idea is Dominic Cummings?

The truly depressing thing about all this nonsense is that Cummings could well be involved.

[TheFamilyCat]

I would expect nothing less from you in your thinking.

Obvious flaws are always so easy when you have the information handed to you after the facts have emerged, clearly in that even the famous blind man on a galloping horse could see, yet the "independent body" setting the algorithm didn't see it but you think the Education Secretary should have.

I am in no way trying to justify the issue with the results and agree that it could have and should have been much better but it wasn't, there is a reason behind that and it certainly wasn't all Gavin Williamson fault.

His department clearly missed this. It may not have been him personally, but as Secretary of State, the buck stops with him.

[nil_desperandum]

The very fact that they had no proper plan in place for inevitable appeals really tells us all we need to know about the competency of those in charge.
Everyone in education and most parents could see the potential problems back in April, but clearly not the man in charge.
One further point: There was no exam marking to do this year and teacher assessments had been submitted before the summer. Given the inevitable - and entirely foreseeable - problems, why wait until the middle of August to announce the results? It could have been done 2 months ago, which then would have given time for a thorough investigation, appeals process etc. Mid-August could have been set for the deadline at which finalised results were submitted to the Universities.

[evensteadiereddie]

An excellent point.

[KateR]

You're talking nonsense in the grand scheme of things and letting your usual bias dictate in this one (crucial) circumstance. Every head of every business, entity, agency, etc. ultimately has to take the responsibility when failures occur, similar to how they take plaudits when there is success to be celebrated.

It would be a very stupid person (not brave) who when advised by a select body in the direction they were taking to say no, I want you to do it this way, and by the way I think your algorithm is wrong! By the same token I am positive he, and others, will have been discussing this issue with Ofqual to such an extent as to the recent announcement below where indeed Ofqual have apologised. As I mentioned earlier, I think people who can see mistakes in the outcomes they set in motion and reverse it, should be applauded but am sure you will think I'm talking nonsense about that to.

Ofqual chair Mr Taylor apologised for the "difficulty" caused to students over its grading system.

He told the BBC: "I would like to say sorry. We have recognised the difficulty that young people have faced coping with the receipt of grades that they were unable to understand the basis on which they had been awarded.

Media captionOfqual chairman Roger Taylor: "It simply has not been an acceptable experience for young people"
He added the regulator realised it had taken "the wrong road" and decided to "change course" after seeing the "anxiety" it had caused to young people and the added "administrative burden on teachers at a time when they need to be preparing for the new school term".

He said while its approach may have had some "technical merits", it had become clear that it had "not been an acceptable experience for young people", and Ofqual had therefore decided to "change course" and allow teacher-assessed grades to be awarded.

[evensteadiereddie]

So none of this has anything to do with Williamson ? That truly is astonishing.

[Claretnick]

So none of this has anything to do with Williamson ? That truly is astonishing.

He claims not to have seen the algorithm until after the results were published. Maybe I am naive but in this most unusual of years I would have thought the Secretary of State for Education and his department would be keeping a close eye on the results process. As someone else posted surely the results could have been scrutinized much earlier in the summer. The ball has now been firmly passed onto the Universities in trying to find places for the students they rejected last week.

https://feweek.co.uk/2020/08/17/william ... published/

[Paul Waine]

So none of this has anything to do with Williamson ? That truly is astonishing.

Yes, eddie, of course, it has something to do with Williamson. It also says a lot for the poor STEM knowledge and understanding amongst our senior civil servants and Ofqual. (Other examples are available). There is "no way" an algorithm can "model" A-level grades for individual students. It is "statistical nonsense" to think that this can be done.

A couple of articles on The Times on-line this afternoon comment on some of the errors. I'll post links.

Re Dominic Cummings, these issues more probably illustrate why DC thought of Dept of Ed as "the blob" rather than his hand in the errors. They appear to support case for reforming civil service rather than anything else.

EDIT: Posted copies of the two Times articles below.

[Paul Waine]

Making a fair algorithm is like trying to unboil an egg . . . impossible
new
Tom Whipple
, Science Editor
Monday August 17 2020, 5.00pm, The Times

The ecological fallacy is not on the A-level mathematics syllabus. If it was, then students might have had a better understanding of what has gone wrong this summer.

The fallacy is a well-known trap, made when people extrapolate from population data to make predictions about individuals. If you do this, you can end up making all sorts of counterintuitive, surprising and sometimes absurd mistakes.

The mundane truth, though, is that there is nothing surprising about what has gone wrong with A-level results. Indeed, Ofqual’s own documents show it should have been expected.

Theirs is an algorithm based heavily on a school’s past performance.

Clearly this will be unfair to exceptional children in unexceptional schools. Conversely, it will overly kind to unexceptional ones in exceptional schools.

Worse, the algorithm is so inflexible in its search to recreate previous years’ results that it will sometimes prohibit A*s or guarantee Us. If you were, as has been the case, a B student who got a U because the year before someone went off the rails, it will be no comfort to learn that, statistically, Ofqual expected someone to go off the rails that year too.

But if there was nothing to surprise, in the details of what went wrong you can still see the absurd.

Take further mathematics, for instance. Further maths is, arguably, the hardest A-level. For this reason, as the figures in Ofqual’s assessment show, last year it was almost unheard of to do worse in normal maths than further maths. This year that happened to 1 in 30 pupils.

This one result is so clearly ridiculous that to an extent (though those 1 in 30 would disagree) it’s to the credit of Ofqual that they did not manually correct it to mask the system’s flaws.

Ofqual’s process was an automation of the ecological fallacy — an abandonment of the individual. They produced a set of results that as a population largely matched those of 2019. Then, having fitted the curve, they assumed their work was done.

Search for the individual, though, and you see the problem is systematic, that there are not just a few exceptions.

Were the same algorithm to have been applied to last year’s results, Ofqual calculates that for each subject fully a third of the time it would have given people a different result.

Oddly, this is considered good. Ofqual, in fact, boasts that 90 per cent of the time they were within one grade — as if a 10 per cent chance of getting a C when you deserve an A is anything other than catastrophic, or as if getting BBB when it should be AAA is fine.

The problem, though, is not just this algorithm, but algorithms in general.

Many times in the pandemic we have heard that civil servants have been given an impossible task. This is the only case, though, where the statement is mathematically provable. It is, quite simply, not achievable to design an algorithm that is completely fair. Given exams themselves involve an element of chance, it is not even clear what “fair” means.

It is obvious from Ofqual’s technical documents that their statisticians tried to catch exceptions. For instance, they accepted that with small intakes the data is too noisy to give the same weight to adjustments based on previous years.

But as every programmer knows, solving one exception risks creating another. If you rely on teachers more when class sizes are small then you risk privileging schools with small class sizes, better known as private schools.

Still, it seems barely conceivable that they did not try harder to catch anomalies. Here is a line of code, for instance, that even non-programmers would probably understand, and which would have saved Gavin Williamson a lot of embarrassment.

IF {Algorithmically assigned grade is two or more grades from the teacher assessment}

THEN {Get a human to have a look at it because you’ve clearly screwed up}

Even with that caveat, the process was doomed to fail. Statistics are by definition a way of representing many numbers in fewer numbers. This is tremendously useful, but we need to know what it means: forgetting about the individual.

Trying to recreate all the complexity of individuals from the crude population numbers we plug into an algorithm is like trying to unboil an egg. You can’t do it, and there’s no way you ever will.

[Paul Waine]

Method used to assign A-level grades favoured public schools
Paul Johnson
Monday August 17 2020, 12.01am, The Times

I spent Saturday morning on the phone to Maureen Cobbett. She was angry, upset and baffled. Maureen is headteacher at The Latymer School, a state grammar school in north London, where one of my sons has just finished lower sixth.

She was angry and upset because the A-level grades her students had just been awarded were well below the average of grades achieved at Latymer over the previous three years. In some subjects, there had been a collapse of more than ten percentage points in the proportions being awarded As and A*s. She was baffled because she had no idea why. Her anger, upset and bafflement clearly has been shared by many teachers across the country.

I have spent a large part of the past 72 hours trying to understand what has happened, wading through the dense 300-plus-page technical document produced by Ofqual supposedly explaining what it did. I have been left equally baffled.

Ofqual, to be fair, was given an impossible task. You cannot fairly assign grades to a cohort of students who have not done the exams. Many were bound to be left angry and upset. They did not, however, have to be left baffled. Maureen was provided with no explanation for her school’s results — she was merely handed them in the same way that she would have been had the kids actually sat the A-levels.

This lack of transparency is unforgivable. The closed way in which the methodology was set is also a cause for concern. The Royal Statistical Society, worried that too many members of the technical advisory group used by Ofqual were present or former employees of government or the regulator, offered that two of its distinguished fellows join the advisory group. Ofqual would agree to that only on the basis of a limiting non-disclosure agreement, which the royal society felt that it could not agree to.

So what can we make out about what happened?

The method used to assign grades makes some sense. Schools were asked to rank their students in each subject. Then information on earlier grades within the schools, and earlier attainment at GCSE, was used to assign grades to each student this year. The resulting distribution of grades looks comparable to the distribution in previous years. Indeed, there are rather more higher grades than in the past.

There are two obvious problems with what Ofqual did. I suspect that there are more, but it will require many more hours of study to discover them.

First, and most obvious, the process adopted favours schools with small numbers of students sitting any individual A-level. That is, it favours private schools. If you have up to five students doing an A-level, you simply get the grades predicted by the teacher. If between five and fifteen, teacher-assigned grades get some weight. More than 15 and they get no weight. Teacher predictions are always optimistic. Result: there was a near-five percentage point increase in the fraction of entries from private schools graded at A or A*. In contrast, sixth-form and further education colleges saw their A and A* grades barely rise — up only 0.3 per cent since 2019 and down since 2018. This is a manifest injustice. No sixth-form or FE college has the funding to support classes of fifteen, let alone five. The result, as Chris Cook, a journalist and education expert, has written: “Two university officials have told me they have the poshest cohorts ever this year because privately educated kids got their grades, the universities filled and there’s no adjustment/clearing places left.”

Second, the algorithm used makes it almost impossible for students at historically poor-performing sixth forms to get top grades, even if the candidates themselves had an outstanding record at GCSE. For reasons that are entirely beyond me, the regulator did not use the full information on GCSE performance. Rather than use data that could help to identify when there are truly outstanding candidates, the model simply records what tenth of the distribution GCSE scores were in. There is a huge difference between the 91st and 99th percentiles, yet they are treated the same. There is little difference between the 89th and 91st, yet they are treated differently.

As Dave Thomson, chief statistician at FFT Education Datalab, has noted, adjustments for changed prior attainment do not appear to take account of the historic value added of the school. That means schools that historically have been good at translating GCSE performance into good A-level results seem to be penalised.

All this may help to explain some of Ms Cobbett’s bafflement. But we don’t know. Ofqual has not provided her with that data.

Then there appears to be a more general lack of common sense applied to the results of the model. If it predicts a U grade (a fail) for a subject in a school, then some poor sucker is going to fail, deserved or not. That’s why some seem to have been awarded Us despite predicted grades of C.

To repeat, the truth is that the regulator was handed an impossible task. But it should have done a better job. More information on students’ prior performance should have been used. For individual schools, results should have been more constrained not to be worse than the average of the past three years, unless there was a big drop-off in prior attainment. Ways could have been found around the small numbers problem. Some of this might have led to a little grade inflation across the board this year. What we got was grade inflation for the already privileged and little or nothing for the rest.

The whole thing should have been more transparent, quicker and with a better worked-out appeals process. This was all bound to end up in a mess, but it didn’t need to be this much of a mess.

Paul Johnson is director of the Institute for Fiscal Studies. Follow him on @PJTheEconomist

[martin_p]

Yes, eddie, of course, it has something to do with Williamson. It also says a lot for the poor STEM knowledge and understanding amongst our senior civil servants and Ofqual. (Other examples are available). There is "no way" an algorithm can "model" A-level grades for individual students. It is "statistical nonsense" to think that this can be done.

A couple of articles on The Times on-line this afternoon comment on some of the errors. I'll post links.

Re Dominic Cummings, these issues more probably illustrate why DC thought of Dept of Ed as "the blob" rather than his hand in the errors. They appear to support case for reforming civil service rather than anything else.

EDIT: Posted copies of the two Times articles below.

How do you know the civil servants weren’t just responding to a request to come up with some sort of algorithm? Williamson will certainly have been asking questions about how cancelled exams were going to be resolved (and if he wasn’t he shouldn’t be in the job) and it’d be usually his special advisors who’d come up with suggested answers. Civil servants will often be given impossible tasks, tell the spads or ministers involved that it’s a really bad idea and then be told to do it anyway. I know, I’ve seen it happen.

[KateR]

So none of this has anything to do with Williamson ? That truly is astonishing.

who has actually said this? Perhaps you can post this evidence that says no blame or he had no knowledge of what was going on, along with your assertion he is the singular person and how he worked out the algorithm. Plus while you're at it maybe you can explain how he was singularly responsible for the results in Scotland under SNP, Wales under Labour and NI under DUP.

Don't pontificate and deflect like you normally do just provide evidence rather than what you think.

I just watched Sky News with two experts, independents, one for Ofqual and one for Universities admissions, they certainly don't share your views either.

[KateR]

Yes, eddie, of course, it has something to do with Williamson. It also says a lot for the poor STEM knowledge and understanding amongst our senior civil servants and Ofqual. (Other examples are available). There is "no way" an algorithm can "model" A-level grades for individual students. It is "statistical nonsense" to think that this can be done.

A couple of articles on The Times on-line this afternoon comment on some of the errors. I'll post links.

Re Dominic Cummings, these issues more probably illustrate why DC thought of Dept of Ed as "the blob" rather than his hand in the errors. They appear to support case for reforming civil service rather than anything else.

EDIT: Posted copies of the two Times articles below.

There was a genuine reason for the algorithm, it was due to having the class of 2020 having results that would be higher than 2019 and in all likelihood those of 2021 and cause an imbalance. This wasn't Williamson's idea but yes clearly he gave the algorithm and process the rubber stamp and therefore is complicit.

According to the two experts discussing this subject, the present way now will increase grades due to teachers being human and normally optimistic about students. This will have a knock on effect to university entrants for 2021 as they will have to compete with the class of 2020, which didn't get in this time. As an aside the number allowed to enter university this term as also been increased today due to the overall mess.

To quote the professor who works with Ofqual, all this was known in April/May and no one was criticizing at that point or indeed until the recent results from Scotland, yet I hear many banging on about this problem was known for months, I don't know which is correct.

[martin_p]

who has actually said this? Perhaps you can post this evidence that says no blame or he had no knowledge of what was going on, along with your assertion he is the singular person and how he worked out the algorithm. Plus while your at it maybe you can explain how he was singularly responsible for the results in Scotland under SNP, Wales under Labour and NI under DUP.

Don't pontificate and deflect like you normally do just provide evidence rather than what you think.

I just watched Sky News with two experts, independents, one for Ofqual and one for Universities admissions, they certainly don't share your views either.

But the buck stops with the person in charge surely? It used to be the case that when a department made a major cock up the minister in charge would walk. This has happened most recently in the May government when Amber Rudd went over the Windrush scandal.

[evensteadiereddie]

"Obvious flaws are always so easy when you have the information handed to you after the facts have emerged, clearly in that even the famous blind man on a galloping horse could see, yet the "independent body" setting the algorithm didn't see it but you think the Education Secretary should have.

I am in no way trying to justify the issue with the results and agree that it could have and should have been much better but it wasn't, there is a reason behind that and it certainly wasn't all Gavin Williamson fault."

Your preceding paragraphs to the above indicated that Ofqual were largely at fault and the paragraphs I've quoted suggest you believe that Williamson didn't see the problem with the algorithm. I'd suggest he damn well should have.
I can see that you are in no way trying to "justify the issue" - even you couldn't do that - but I love how you've shifted the blame to Ofqual, leaving poor old Gav not completely guilty.
I'd argue - and the general public seem to be of the same opinion - that the Education Secretary is paid to be absolutely leading on this kind of issue but he has neither the experience nor the ability.
You make excuses for him all you like, you don't even live here after all, but this shitstorm and the looming GCSE results will damage your party massively.

Perhaps I should have said, "So all this has only a little bit to do with Williamson ? That is truly even more astonishing !

[KateR]

But the buck stops with the person in charge surely? It used to be the case that when a department made a major cock up the minister in charge would walk. This has happened most recently in the May government when Amber Rudd went over the Windrush scandal.

of course he has the ultimate responsibility, no argument from me, whether he walks or not is up to him or BJ+ to make him walk. My only comment is around that he did not come up with the scheme but yes he rubber stamped it and has blame, but not total blame. He and the head of Ofqual have apologized, we will no doubt see shortly whether he walks or not. Personally I would rather see people learn and grow from failures, I don't know the man, I have no loyalty to the man, the system has totally upset a lot of people and needs to be put right.

[KateR]

"Obvious flaws are always so easy when you have the information handed to you after the facts have emerged, clearly in that even the famous blind man on a galloping horse could see, yet the "independent body" setting the algorithm didn't see it but you think the Education Secretary should have.

I am in no way trying to justify the issue with the results and agree that it could have and should have been much better but it wasn't, there is a reason behind that and it certainly wasn't all Gavin Williamson fault."

Your preceding paragraphs to the above indicated that Ofqual were largely at fault and the paragraphs I've quoted suggest you believe that Williamson didn't see the problem with the algorithm. I'd suggest he damn well should have.
I can see that you are in no way trying to "justify the issue" - even you couldn't do that - but I love how you've shifted the blame to Ofqual, leaving poor old Gav not completely guilty.
I'd argue - and the general public seem to be of the same opinion - that the Education Secretary is paid to be absolutely leading on this kind of issue but he has neither the experience nor the ability.
You make excuses for him all you like, you don't even live here after all, but this shitstorm and the looming GCSE results will damage your party massively.

Perhaps I should have said, "So all this has only a little bit to do with Williamson ? That is truly even more astonishing !

you continue in your normal method and try to put thoughts, meaning, rationale and words in my mouth with how you read and interpret what I wrote.

I have not shifted blame to Ofqual in an attempt to let GW be blameless, far from it if you actually took the time to read what I say and where not perfectly clear ask a question for clarity.

I am not making excuses for him, merely pointing out the truth as I am not biased like you and many here are and I see you resorted to deflecting again in your little, "you don't even live here after all". So no one can comment except those who live in the UK, is this your new rationale and defense to anyone who doesn't agree with you?

Keep trying to justify yourself in what you said, I don't think I am the only one to see your total bias

Clearly the two experts on Sky News don't agree with you.

[Devils_Advocate]

In defence of Gavin Williamson he has been very busy the last couple of helping Chris Grayling with a major road traffic project.

[evensteadiereddie]

Comment all you like but, living where you do, I don't think you completely understand the depth of feeling about this travesty and the shitshow of sheer stupidity surrounding it.

Incompetence reigns and the buck stops with Williamson whether you like it or not.

The reason I'm "biased", as you keep banging on, is that after a career in teaching and as a parent, I am appalled at this government's handling of this fiasco. It's not bias, you clown, it's anger and disbelief. You tell me what, if anything, has been competent and professional about any of this.

If that's bias - as you so lazily label it - there are, I suspect, many, many thousands, Tories included, who share it.

[TVC15]

Of course GW did not work out any algorithm - but that is totally irrelevant as he will have been advised what they were trying to achieve from the algorithm and he will have approved this.
The whole thing is an absolute clusterfuck. GW was on the verge of being sacked a couple of months ago - he will hopefully get what he deserves and be on the back benches before the start of the new school term.

The only silver lining is that a generation of voters won’t be going anywhere near the Tories for a good while.

[KateR]

Comment all you like but, living where you do, I don't think you completely understand the depth of feeling about this travesty and the shitshow of sheer stupidity surrounding it.

Incompetence reigns and the buck stops with Williamson whether you like it or not.

The reason I'm "biased", as you keep banging on, is that after a career in teaching and as a parent, I am appalled at this government's handling of this fiasco. It's not bias, you clown, it's anger and disbelief. You tell me what, if anything, has been competent and professional about any of this.

If that's bias - as you so lazily label it - there are, I suspect, many, many thousands, Tories included, who share it.

clown now, just continuous statements that verify so many things, I believe you know what I think about you and I certainly know what you think about me, so I'll leave you to your bitter drivel.

[Paul Waine]

How do you know the civil servants weren’t just responding to a request to come up with some sort of algorithm? Williamson will certainly have been asking questions about how cancelled exams were going to be resolved (and if he wasn’t he shouldn’t be in the job) and it’d be usually his special advisors who’d come up with suggested answers. Civil servants will often be given impossible tasks, tell the spads or ministers involved that it’s a really bad idea and then be told to do it anyway. I know, I’ve seen it happen.

How do I know? That's not how it works, Martin. The civil servants are supposed to be "on top" of their area of responsibility. I'm sure Williamson "asked questions about how cancelled exams were going to be resolved..." I'm sure Ofqual and Dept of Ed senior civil servants would have responded with a written paper: "teachers' assessments, moderated v past results, algorithm etc etc etc. Maybe there would have been presentations and discussions. I'd expect this would have been between Ofqual and Dept of Ed. Maybe a spad would have joined such a meeting to be able to brief the minister. Most of Williamson's time would have been spent on getting the schools open again, firstly, trying to get some pupils back in June. Then re-working to get everyone "on side" to re-start in Sept.

I doubt Williamson has given exam results a further thought until the last couple of weeks. If he'd asked Ofqual, Im sure they said that "everything is fine" and will be "on timetable."

On occasions during my career I've worked with Gov't departments and Regulators. I've also met a few ministers and observed them working in a variety of events. I agree, some ministers (and/or their spads - though these are mostly ambitious new uni grads) have really bad ideas. I don't think there was anything "Impossible" re the task to come up with exam results - that's not a "bad idea." I think the algorithm is the bad idea. It's impossible to award fair A-level grades to individual students the way Ofqual has gone about it.

BTW: I do think Williamson should resign.

[martin_p]

How do I know? That's not how it works, Martin. The civil servants are supposed to be "on top" of their area of responsibility. I'm sure Williamson "asked questions about how cancelled exams were going to be resolved..." I'm sure Ofqual and Dept of Ed senior civil servants would have responded with a written paper: "teachers' assessments, moderated v past results, algorithm etc etc etc. Maybe there would have been presentations and discussions. I'd expect this would have been between Ofqual and Dept of Ed. Maybe a spad would have joined such a meeting to be able to brief the minister. Most of Williamson's time would have been spent on getting the schools open again, firstly, trying to get some pupils back in June. Then re-working to get everyone "on side" to re-start in Sept.

I doubt Williamson has given exam results a further thought until the last couple of weeks. If he'd asked Ofqual, Im sure they said that "everything is fine" and will be "on timetable."

On occasions during my career I've worked with Gov't departments and Regulators. I've also met a few ministers and observed them working in a variety of events. I agree, some ministers (and/or their spads - though these are mostly ambitious new uni grads) have really bad ideas. I don't think there was anything "Impossible" re the task to come up with exam results - that's not a "bad idea." I think the algorithm is the bad idea. It's impossible to award fair A-level grades to individual students the way Ofqual has gone about it.

BTW: I do think Williamson should resign.

If you think ‘that’s not how it works’ then you’ve never worked in government.

[GodIsADeeJay81]

But the buck stops with the person in charge surely? It used to be the case that when a department made a major cock up the minister in charge would walk. This has happened most recently in the May government when Amber Rudd went over the Windrush scandal.

Ofqual report to Parliament, not the gov or a gov minister, sorry to burst that bubble for you.

[evensteadiereddie]

Jesus, KR, give it a rest. You support the government in all that they do and gamely try to defend them no matter what - good for you - but, please, don't show your weakness by constantly replaying this victim crap every single time you reply to me. If you hurt so much just ignore me, I'll not be offended.

If you can't accept a different point of view, grow up and keep the personal stuff to yourself. You really think I've ever considered what you think about me ? Why the hell would I ?

Stick to the topic, accept others have different views to you and leave it at that.

[Paul Waine]

There was a genuine reason for the algorithm, it was due to having the class of 2020 having results that would be higher than 2019 and in all likelihood those of 2021 and cause an imbalance. This wasn't Williamson's idea but yes clearly he gave the algorithm and process the rubber stamp and therefore is complicit.

According to the two experts discussing this subject, the present way now will increase grades due to teachers being human and normally optimistic about students. This will have a knock on effect to university entrants for 2021 as they will have to compete with the class of 2020, which didn't get in this time. As an aside the number allowed to enter university this term as also been increased today due to the overall mess.

To quote the professor who works with Ofqual, all this was known in April/May and no one was criticizing at that point or indeed until the recent results from Scotland, yet I hear many banging on about this problem was known for months, I don't know which is correct.

Hi Kate, I get it that having consistent results, year-on-year, is a consideration, but that should very much be a secondary consideration. The first aim of exams is to award results to individual students. Moderating, to compare a cohort with the previous cohort is important to make sure that the actual exam papers are set at and marked at a similar standard. But, there were no exam papers this year. I'd have looked at other ways of moderating the "enthusiasm" of teachers and their heads to demonstrate that they were doing a really good job and their students had achieved a higher standard this year than last year. (Layla Moran, Lib-Dem MP, said that when she was a teacher she would have always "predicted" her students results as if they'd achieved their very best in the exam.... ). It's natural for teachers/schools to want to do this. If I'd been Ofqual I'd have looked at other means to manage this potential grade inflation rather than create a "dumb" algorithm to try and do it. And, given the covid-19 situation, I'd have been comfortable with some "grade inflation." (It would have been consistent with Sunak's management of the economy).Everyone would have remembered that the A-Levels were awarded in 2020, without exams. The students would have gone on to unis or their other school-leaver choices. Two or three years down the line they would have either proved their A-Level grades correct and gone on to add real qualifications, or they would have fallen short of the opportunity a higher grade had given them (if that is an opportunity). It would have been a "levelling-up" approach to be award higher grades.

Re "known in April/May" or otherwise. I put it down to letting Ofqual get on with their job and trusting them to get it right. More experienced ministers than Williamson may have considered that it may go "horribly wrong" and asked a lot more questions and got the right staff to dig a lot deeper into the answers.

[Paul Waine]

If you think ‘that’s not how it works’ then you’ve never worked in government.

Do you think I've claimed that I've "worked in government." Agree, I haven't done that. All I've said is that my work brought me into contact with civil servants, regulators and government ministers - and this has given me some insights into how these things work.

[martin_p]

Do you think I've claimed that I've "worked in government." Agree, I haven't done that. All I've said is that my work brought me into contact with civil servants, regulators and government ministers - and this has given me some insights into how these things work.

And I’m saying that in my experience that is often the way things work.

[KateR]

trying to have the last word with everyone who disagrees with you is not going to fly when you continue to insult. I would say to you, have a think, before your next knee jerk answer that always descends in to insults and deflections, when you are asked questions you can't answer or don't want to answer.

I asked you politely before to respond as to the other Nations in the Union and the same issue but you ignored, why is your frothing at the mouth always in relation to the Tory party?

I already accept your opinion and others, it's you that wont accept an alternative thought, perhaps just once you will consider an opinion in what should be a debate rather that resorting to insults, but I wont hold my breath on that one.

Try stopping insulting people that don't agree with you, clown and talking nonsense are your retorts, now we can add weakness, grow up, yet you have the cheek to mention personal stuff, the irony of it is amazing.

===========================================================================================================

Nicola Sturgeon has apologised after accepting her government "did not get it right" over Scottish exam results.
With no exams sat this year due to the coronavirus pandemic, the Scottish Qualifications Authority (SQA) ran a system based on teacher assessments.
However, officials then applied a moderation technique which led to about 125,000 estimates being downgraded.
The first minister said this approach was too focused on the "overall system" and not enough on individual pupils.
Education Secretary John Swinney will set out the government's plan to fix the issue on Tuesday, with Ms Sturgeon saying the onus would not be on students to submit appeals.
Opposition parties are pushing for a vote of no confidence in the education secretary, but Ms Sturgeon said she had faith in Mr Swinney and that the row was "not party political".

The Welsh Government's handling of exam results is to be "urgently" examined by a Senedd committee amid criticism over the grading of A-levels.
Students have accused the Welsh Government of "abandoning them" after 42% of grades were lowered by the exams watchdog.
As head teachers described the results as "unjust", the Senedd's education committee has been recalled.
But First Minister Mark Drakeford has said it was "a record year" for pupils.
"The big picture is we have more students achieving, more students achieving at the very top end of the scale, and a record number of people from Wales accepted into university," he told BBC Wales.
The handling of the results system has seen the Labour government come under fire from head teachers and some of its own backbenchers, who said some pupils had got results two grades lower than predicted.
But 42% were downgraded by exams watchdog, Qualifications Wales, after it judged the grades were "too generous".
On Wednesday, Education Minister Kirsty Williams promised that students would be guaranteed a grade no lower than they achieved at AS-level.
But with the last-minute intervention coming after results had already been sent to schools and colleges, there are concerns that universities may judge applications on the grades already issued, before that revision takes effect.
In an open letter to Ms Williams, 16 members of the Welsh Youth Parliament also called for action
A-level and AS-level students in Northern Ireland will be awarded the highest grade either predicted by their teacher or awarded officially last week.

Education Minister Peter Weir made the announcement on Monday, hours after announcing GCSEs would be based solely on teacher predictions.
The U-turn follows widespread criticism of the way way A-levels were graded.
The Stormont Assembly will meet on Tuesday to discuss the issue.
About 28,000 pupils across Northern Ireland received their A-level results last Thursday.

[Paul Waine]

And I’m saying that in my experience that is often the way things work.

Which dept were (are) you in, martin? What's your role?

[martin_p]

Which dept were (are) you in, martin? What's your role?

I’m not going into detail on a public messageboard but suffice to say I’ve worked in the civil service for nearly 30 years

[evensteadiereddie]

"trying to have the last word with everyone who disagrees with you is not going to fly when you continue to insult. I would say to you, have a think, before your next knee jerk answer that always descends in to insults and deflections, when you are asked questions you can't answer or don't want to answer.

I asked you politely before to respond as to the other Nations in the Union and the same issue but you ignored, why is your frothing at the mouth always in relation to the Tory party?

I already accept your opinion and others, it's you that wont accept an alternative thought, perhaps just once you will consider an opinion in what should be a debate rather that resorting to insults, but I wont hold my breath on that one.

Try stopping insulting people that don't agree with you, clown and talking nonsense are your retorts, now we can add weakness, grow up, yet you have the cheek to mention personal stuff, the irony of it is amazing."

That's really incisive stuff, Kate - for you. Blimey, it's almost relevant and almost coherent. Good job.

[KateR]

Hi Kate, I get it that having consistent results, year-on-year, is a consideration, but that should very much be a secondary consideration. The first aim of exams is to award results to individual students. Moderating, to compare a cohort with the previous cohort is important to make sure that the actual exam papers are set at and marked at a similar standard. But, there were no exam papers this year. I'd have looked at other ways of moderating the "enthusiasm" of teachers and their heads to demonstrate that they were doing a really good job and their students had achieved a higher standard this year than last year. (Layla Moran, Lib-Dem MP, said that when she was a teacher she would have always "predicted" her students results as if they'd achieved their very best in the exam.... ). It's natural for teachers/schools to want to do this. If I'd been Ofqual I'd have looked at other means to manage this potential grade inflation rather than create a "dumb" algorithm to try and do it. And, given the covid-19 situation, I'd have been comfortable with some "grade inflation." (It would have been consistent with Sunak's management of the economy).Everyone would have remembered that the A-Levels were awarded in 2020, without exams. The students would have gone on to unis or their other school-leaver choices. Two or three years down the line they would have either proved their A-Level grades correct and gone on to add real qualifications, or they would have fallen short of the opportunity a higher grade had given them (if that is an opportunity). It would have been a "levelling-up" approach to be award higher grades.

Re "known in April/May" or otherwise. I put it down to letting Ofqual get on with their job and trusting them to get it right. More experienced ministers than Williamson may have considered that it may go "horribly wrong" and asked a lot more questions and got the right staff to dig a lot deeper into the answers.

I agree with what you say, it's a pandemic, it is as far as I know the first time this has happened in anyone's working lifetime, it has turned out to be a mess all round and I am glad to see it being changed everywhere in the UK, it wont be perfect but it is better than what the algorithm results reported.

[KateR]

I'll add condescending to the list now thank you

[evensteadiereddie]

You're welcome, love, you're welcome.

[KateR]

YAWN

[evensteadiereddie]

Yay, we got there in the end.

You'll be right as rain in a day or two...

[Claretnick]

How do I know? That's not how it works, Martin. The civil servants are supposed to be "on top" of their area of responsibility. I'm sure Williamson "asked questions about how cancelled exams were going to be resolved..." I'm sure Ofqual and Dept of Ed senior civil servants would have responded with a written paper: "teachers' assessments, moderated v past results, algorithm etc etc etc. Maybe there would have been presentations and discussions. I'd expect this would have been between Ofqual and Dept of Ed. Maybe a spad would have joined such a meeting to be able to brief the minister. Most of Williamson's time would have been spent on getting the schools open again, firstly, trying to get some pupils back in June. Then re-working to get everyone "on side" to re-start in Sept.

I doubt Williamson has given exam results a further thought until the last couple of weeks. If he'd asked Ofqual, Im sure they said that "everything is fine" and will be "on timetable."

On occasions during my career I've worked with Gov't departments and Regulators. I've also met a few ministers and observed them working in a variety of events. I agree, some ministers (and/or their spads - though these are mostly ambitious new uni grads) have really bad ideas. I don't think there was anything "Impossible" re the task to come up with exam results - that's not a "bad idea." I think the algorithm is the bad idea. It's impossible to award fair A-level grades to individual students the way Ofqual has gone about it.

BTW: I do think Williamson should resign.

Had too much time on my hands, and found this letter from the Secretary of State issuing a directive to Ofqual. In light of the unusual circumstances occurring this year I would have thought the Depart of Ed would have kept a close eye on the grading of this year's exams. They also had a taste of things to come from the exam result reaction in Scotland on 4th August! Not enough attention to detail with this Government.

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.u ... ollier.pdf

https://committees.parliament.uk/public ... 6/default/

[martin_p]

Had too much time on my hands, and found this letter from the Secretary of State issuing a directive to Ofqual. In light of the unusual circumstances occurring this year I would have thought the Depart of Ed would have kept a close eye on the grading of this year's exams. They also had a taste of things to come from the exam result reaction in Scotland on 4th August! Not enough attention to detail with this Government.

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.u ... ollier.pdf

https://committees.parliament.uk/public ... 6/default/

Well there’s the smoking gun that proves Williamson asked Ofqual to come up with an algorithm.

[RingoMcCartney]

It's a poor do when the most right wing, nationalistic government in modern day politics just isn't right wing enough for you, isn't it Ringo?

BNP next time, is it?

It's not right wing to be concerned about illegal immigration.

It's not right wing to be concerned about billion pound,
10 years contracts being handed out by a government that claimed theyd stop illegal immigration.

It's not right wing to be angry that illegal immigrants are being molly coddled in 4 star hotels, in spar hotels in Cheshire in top rated hotels in Hoylake and taken on stadium tours of Anfield all at the tax payers expense.

It's not right wing to believe that all this will only encourage the inhumane exploitation by people traffickers who are making millions, being part of this billion pound racket.

As Nigel Farage says there needs to be the political will to stop this

Australia solved the illegal migration. They made it policy that anyone arriving on their shores using illegal routes, would never ever be given Australian citizenship.

Its been revealed that a nice hotel in Priti Patel's constituency is booked up for 12 months or so as it been seconded for housing "asylum seekers" at the tax payers expense

With billion pound 10 year contracts being dished out,its clear there's no political will to stop the disgusting trade in human beings.

[CombatClaret]

It's not right wing to be concerned about illegal immigration.

It's not right wing to be concerned about billion pound,
10 years contracts being handed out by a government that claimed theyd stop illegal immigration.

It's not right wing to be angry that illegal immigrants are being molly coddled in 4 star hotels, in spar hotels in Cheshire in top rated hotels in Hoylake and taken on stadium tours of Anfield all at the tax payers expense.

It's not right wing to believe that all this will only encourage the inhumane exploitation by people traffickers who are making millions, being part of this billion pound racket.

As Nigel Farage says there needs to be the political will to stop this

Australia solved the illegal migration. They made it policy that anyone arriving on their shores using illegal routes, would never ever be given Australian citizenship.

Its been revealed that a nice hotel in Priti Patel's constituency is booked up for 12 months or so as it been seconded for housing "asylum seekers" at the tax payers expense

With billion pound 10 year contracts being dished out,its clear there's no political will to stop the disgusting trade in human beings.

Put 10p in the machine, get a Daily Mail headline.