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What the world can learn from the UK's A-level grading fiasco

blogs.lse.ac.uk

91–92 of 92 posts

Re: What the world can learn from the UK's A-level grading fiasco

#91
post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

and made it impossible to get a high grade if no-one fromm your college got one before Well that is unlikely. If you are going to handle it algorithmically then what else would you expect. Clearly the teachers can't be relied on because now everybody is getting an A*, the grades are effectively useless as an indicator. I was disappointed although not surprised that the government caved on this.

It's not unlikely, it's practically certain. If you have hundreds of schools there absolutely will be a handful of students who do better than previous years and there will be a handful of students who do worse than ever before. Maybe it's not a big deal to hand a C to someone deserving of an E, but it's certainly a big deal that the moron at the school that gets good grades (read: private school) gets a pass, whilst…

There are always outliers.

Interestingly the private schools seem to be to be grading their students more accurately, the problems were more common in state schools. The moron in a private school was unlikely to get their grades inflated. I'm not a fan of private schooling but in this case they appeared to be doing the right thing.

There will always be outliers, no system is perfect but what we have just done is worse in my mind.

Re: What the world can learn from the UK's A-level grading fiasco

#92
post #48

Serious question: Why weren't the exams taken? Everything I have read about this glosses over this critical bit which I am very curious about. I understand there is/was a worldwide pandemic and all of that, but it feels to me that there wasn't necessarily a reason exams couldn't be taken in socially-distanced class rooms (with students wearing masks, as well as the teachers, of course) or if needed be in repurposed v…

> it feels to me that there wasn't necessarily a reason exams couldn't be taken in socially-distanced class rooms (with students wearing masks, as well as the teachers, of course) or if needed be in repurposed venues, like football stadiums (leaving plenty of space between students). Exactly what you’re proposing just isn’t feasible, because of the sheer numbers. I see American posters on reddit complain about having…

This was feasible here in Poland and some other European countries managed to proceed with exams seemingly safely as well.
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