‘A’level results, not a level playing field.

Isn’t Johnson on holiday?
Yes, he has gone to Scotland. To visit the Queen?
He no doubt knew about France in advance.

Isn’t Johnson on holiday?

The exam boards don't place restrictions on subject choice, but schools sometimes "block" their timetables so that only certain combinations are available.

^Back in the day it was always maths physics chemistry/ English French German/ etc etc. Now I have a young relative studying maths geography and french.^"
That wasnt always true; my relative studied two maths and two languages at 'A' level, went on to study modern languages but then finance. That was over 40 years ago.
Perhaps it depended on the board.

All that needed to be done was to give the grades the students got in their mocks, and if they didn't give of their best in those then too bad.
quizqueen
Some students work steadily all the way through; others may not do so well in mock exams but, as a result, really work hard and achieve excellent results in the actual exams.
Teachers will know that they are capable of achieving more.

grumppa

More seriously, there is at least a chance that the problem might have been resolved more sensibly if it had been left to the universities and the schools to sort out without government interference. What, I wonder, is the point of the Department of Education?

What is the point of the government?

I see Williamson is blame shifting.

What a surprise.

I’m still waiting for his resignation.

More seriously, there is at least a chance that the problem might have been resolved more sensibly if it had been left to the universities and the schools to sort out without government interference. What, I wonder, is the point of the Department of Education?

Given that one is an anagram of the other, I ha e been pondering the difference between algorithms and logarithms.

Logarithms were useful.....

And where's the P.M.?

Was it too much for him to apologise to the students, their parents and their teachers ? He seems to have no idea, but then what can we expect from this inane , incompetent government .?

The next and huge looming muddle are the customs arrangements due to be enforced at the end of transition.

It is becoming clear that this is yet something else the government is beginning to cock up.

We can live in hope that they find some competence before January.

Ilovecheese

To Chris Grayling perhaps.

Being totally useless is not what most people want from their government. Grayling epitomises this government.

Matt Chorley

Voters don’t mind strong government.
Voters don’t mind government u-turns.
Voters often don’t even mind if governments do things they don’t like.
But they do mind if the government starts to look incompetent.
And appearing to be completely bloody useless is difficult to shake off

To Chris Grayling perhaps.

Isn’t this the truth

Robert Saunders

The Vote Leave team that now runs Number 10 spent years dismissing complex policy problems as "Project Fear" or making up imaginary solutions like "GATT 24". So whenever it hits a policy problem that actually needs solving - like A-Level results or a pandemic - things fall apart.

I am waiting to hear Williamson’s resignation. He doesn’t appear to have been in evidence today so I reckon he is a goner.

No doubt to hand over to another complete incompetent.

Daisymae

So some of the uni places have been allocated to weaker pupils from stronger performing schools? Is this how levelling up works?

Apparently!

Davidhs

Because there are less overseas students this year there will be more Uni places anyway but it will cost the student loan company a lot more.

Apparently there is a record number of applications this year, so there aren't spare places, especially on prestigious courses.

The universities will lose out, because overseas fees are considerably higher than fees for home students.

Davidhs

So now the teachers have got to sort out the GCSE results fiasco they created
A lot of pupils are still going to be disappointed because teachers will still choose the best ones for the limited places on courses

It doesn't work like that. Sixth form places are usually less competitive, although some sixth forms specify minimum grades. They'll honour all those who reach the threshold.

Ofqual have now said that centre assessed GCSE grades will be the ones awarded.

How do you work out that teachers created the fiasco? They did what they always do, which is to use their professional judgement to estimate a grade.

Teachers cannot be blamed for any of this (outside the ramblings of the gutter press).

I should add that this was always normal practice.

Teachers will have sent predicted grades to the exam boards before the Lockdown.
So they will be the ones that stand.

Davidhs

So now the teachers have got to sort out the GCSE results fiasco they created
A lot of pupils are still going to be disappointed because teachers will still choose the best ones for the limited places on courses

I don’t think it’s the teachers who created this fiasco though?

Davidhs

So now the teachers have got to sort out the GCSE results fiasco they created
A lot of pupils are still going to be disappointed because teachers will still choose the best ones for the limited places on courses

Excuse me?? How exactly did teachers create the fiasco ??

So now the teachers have got to sort out the GCSE results fiasco they created
A lot of pupils are still going to be disappointed because teachers will still choose the best ones for the limited places on courses

The point is that this flawed algorithm should never have been applied without proper modelling. It is not good enough to say that it would have got the right answer in previous years in 2 out of 3 cases.

The adjusted grades should not have been issued last week.

What happens now will be fairer to most students than what was based on the algorithm but there will still be some students who have lost out because their grades were downgraded and the university place they were offered went to another student who was upgraded.

Because there are less overseas students this year there will be more Uni places anyway but it will cost the student loan company a lot more.

It certainly could not be called levelling up, but can that still be changed?

I would imagine that a weak student from a strong school who was upgraded and therefore took a university place offered on the basis of the higher grades would not be too delighted about having the offer withdrawn.