TOT: exam results (Scotland)

[The Natural Philosopher]

Tubblishing!

[tim...]

I don't see why anybody should be taking the blame

exam grades did NOT go up by 35% this year

pretending that they did helps nobody

[Scott]

Does that not point the finger of blame at the Cabinet Secretary for using his 'statutory powers' to adjust the grades upwards - or am I missing something?

[Scott]

Or as someone put it in the parliament yesterday: risking the future of a generation of school children did not matter but risking the future of the Deputy First Minister does.

[bert]

In article , NY writes

Well they seem to have totally cocked it up. In trying to come up with a scheme to minimise grade inflation they have ended up in a situation with more grade inflation than in they had done nothing.

The Scottish policy was particularly inept so hopefully not. But the minister responsible is a mate of Sturgeon so no comeback.

[bert]

In article , Scott writes

Or just make a mental note to knock them down a grade or two. Personally when interviewing I soon got into the character of the interviewee rather than their Record of Achievement or whatever was the current fashion in the education world.

[Andrew]

That isn't how they do it. For years all the raw marks were analysed and then adjusted to fit the number of people required to 'pass' the exam.

Adjusting the raw marks of someone getting 5 or 95 marks out of 100 is pointless, but as you get closer to the top of the curve of marks vs number getting that mark you achieve it by effectively 'wobbling' the peak to the left or right.

Not sure when UK exam boards ceased doing this.

[Andrew]

Oh well, at least more kids will have enough quals to get into the army !

[Scott]

I'm sure that's right. I was more thinking of the pre-selection process to decide who should be interviewed. Is this not done mechanistically on occasions?

Apocryphal no doubt, but I heard of two candidates who applied for a job. One was interviewed and the other was not. The reason was that the successful candidate answered a certain question with a sentence and the unsuccessful candidate answered the same question using one word.

[NY]

Did you pay much/any attention to their A level results, or did you mainly use degree result and final year project description when deciding which applicants to interview?

I was very lucky when I got my first job. I'd done two years of a degree but I unexpectedly and inexplicably (*) failed my second year exams so I had to leave, and did an HND instead - I only had to do the second year of the two-year course because of my degree experience. I got pretty damn good results in the HND (for an HND, they quote results for individual subjects, and not an overall result) but I was well aware that it was not a degree.

The first job I applied for, I was called for interview, partly (my boss told me afterwards) because they were interested in my history of (partial) degree followed by HND. The interview was going moderately well, but when they asked me about my final year project, and I was able to produce my report, their little eyes lit up: one guy looked impressed and passed it to the other with an eyebrows-raised expression (they were desperately trying to communicate without letting me know what they were saying!) and the second said "I think Fred [my future boss] should see this".

It turned out that I probably wouldn't have got the job they were interviewing me for, but another related department was doing work that was very closely related to the subject of my project. They offered me the job there and then - none of the usual "we'll write and let you know the outcome of the interview".

And that was mainly due to my having had the foresight to take my project report along, in case it happened to be needed.

(*) Much later I learned that I'd been suffering from severe depression, which my GP hadn't diagnosed.

[Scott]

How come the number of top grades keeps going up?

Are you saying moderation ended some time ago? Swinney said yesterday it happens every year.

[Scott]

Sadly, not well understood in the past.

[NY]

It was only when I went through another bout of depression (which *was* diagnosed and treated with counselling) about 10 years later that it dawned on me "I've been here before".

The university (which will remain nameless) was utterly useless. They didn't ask "why has this student who did well above average in his first-year exams and got high marks in his first- and second-year assignments failed half his second-year exams". They just referred me for retakes later that summer. And I failed the ones I'd originally passed, and narrowly passed the ones I'd originally failed. I'd got a summer job at a course-related engineering company in the city, so I drove in one lunchtime to get the results of the retakes. I couldn't find my own tutor so I asked one of the lecturers to find out the results. I could tell by his diffidence that it was not good news, but before he'd said anything the professor came along - a big cheerful bombastic bear of a man (think of James Robertson Justice without the bad temper!) - and he said "Don't worry, laddie, I'm sure you'll have passed. Nothing to worry about." It was left to the lecturer, by now deeply embarrassed, to say "Actually it *isn't* good news. I must apologise for Professor X's tactlessness."

The upshot was that I could still take the exams again the following summer, but they were planning to change the syllabus, and I couldn't attend any lectures for that revised syllabus. The decision was made for me, really - not really a viable option, when I didn't know why I'd failed. My dad did a bit of phoning around, got me on an equivalent (though HND) course at the Poly, and I did fantastically - I think I got five distinctions and two merits out of the various subjects that made up the course. A different (and dramatically better) style of teaching helped a lot: the Poly lecturers' attitude was "these are the skills and knowledge that you should have learned by the end, and if you don't do well, that's as much our fault as yours". They were approachable, they were willing to explain things again, maybe in a different way. They were there to impart skills, not as a resultant chore when they'd rather be doing research. Unlike the university lecturers, they didn't exude an "I am *considerably* cleverer than you will ever be" (think of the Harry Enfield "I am considerably richer than yow" sketches!). (*)

Armed with the excellent HND, and especially the project report, I walked straight into my first job. Would my career have been any different if I'd had a BEng? Who knows.

(*) There was a very telling incident. One lecturer had been particularly bad and had scored abysmally in the end-of-subject course assessment by us. He took me and a friend on one side and asked us to put together a list of our concerns. So we did what anyone would do in that situation: we acted as representatives and canvassed everyone in the class, and made a combined list of everyone's concerns and constructive suggestions (editing out the less tactful ones like "WTF was this course all about?" and "try a career that doesn't involve teaching"!) and presented them to him, trying to be as positive as possible. He went ballistic! How dare we get everyone else's opinions; he wanted only our own. How dare we even reveal to everyone else that he had asked for our opinions. I think he chose us because he thought we would be the least likely to rock the boat. While he was in full rant, my tutor happened to pass, and the lecturer said "Do you know what these students have done?". Once it had been explained to my tutor, he said "Good for you lads. Good initiative getting everyone's opinion. That's what I'd have done". How we laughed afterwards at the lecturer's downfall - he was expecting support from my tutor and got the exact opposite.

[T i m]

But it's all because we are increasingly treating all sorts of living things (inc humans) like machines, being processed though the same system and irrespective of their abilities, background, situation or anything.

Maybe 'now days' they do deal with remedial students ... and those doing *very* well better, but the batch in the middle just go though the same mill.

Step granddaughter went into school the week after her mum was diagnosed with terminal cancer but was sent home because 1) they knew she didn't have much time to be with her Mum and 2) she was bright enough to catch up or work on her own.

When she did go back to school she went to a new one rather than saying on at her own schools 6th form, specifically because of their good reputation for music, only to find she didn't get on with the music teacher, so after several meetings (in pseudo parent / head teacher etc) they decided she could keep away from the music classes (and that the teacher wasn't going to change or be replaced).

Now, no one was expecting any special treatment, other than you hope they will nurture the talents of each student in a way that best suits them, not their 'standard process' (especially in something like music).

Cheers, T i m

[tim...]

but that's not what the crowd are baying about

[tim...]

what's the doing nothing here?

do you mean in awarding the grades

or when appeasing the masses saying that your first attempt was wrong

tim

[tim...]

because modern kids have greater intelligence, of course

[Scott]

I was responding to your comment 'I don't see why anybody should be taking the blame'. A large number of opposition MSPs certainly are baying about whether the Education Secretary should remain in post.

[Jim GM4 DHJ ...]

England.....

A levels: Why did I not get the grades I expected? With A-level results being decided in a very different way this year, many students have been left confused and frustrated by their grades.

...........because you are the "entitled" generation

and because the thickest of you believe you are Einstein because your woke teachers told you

[tim...]

but take the blame for what?

the original c*ck up

or the "fix"

my comment is about the original c*ck up

Further responses seems to suggest that it was the fix being referred to as blameworthy