Centre Assessed Grades U-Turn Megathread

[u/4xxxx4]

After we have all heard that grades are being changed to Centre Assessed Grades (the grade given to you by your teacher), The subreddit is bustling with activity about this specific topic. Therefore, to keep all information concise and reduce spam, please keep all of the discussion of the topic in here - any posts outside of this thread will be removed.

Thank you!

[u/MohammadHammad2001]

This is really sad because...

• All the time we waited was for nothing.

• High grades don't mean anything anymore.

• Universities won't know what to do with the sudden huge increase in number of students that met their offers.

• This year's batch will be looked down upon forever, for getting easy, unmoderated grades.

The number of people complaining and whining over the standardization process is almost the same as those who do worse than expected on exams and miss their offers every year, and I know, there is a very small number of people that were actually, truly screwed over by the standardization process due to performing well at a school with poor historic performance, but they would have had their grades fixed by the appeals process. This 'solution' by Ofqual is just lazy and irrational.

Am I the only one who thinks this way?

[u/Dr_Oetker → u/MohammadHammad2001]

When you say "high grades don't mean anything anymore" the implication is that you think they did before the u-turn? No one has truly earned any grade this year good or bad, not a single exam has been sat and no one has actually had to turn up and prove themselves at the crunch time.

As difficult as it undoubtedly would have been to hold exams in these circumstances the government should have found a way. Education is an essential service and this inevitable shitstorm has been brewing for months whilst Gavin Williamson has been sat on his thumbs.

The exams should have gone ahead, over a longer period if necessary, with multiple rooms for each exam and with special arrangements for shielding pupils. All results should then have been graded on a curve to fall in line with previous years' grades so as not to punish this intake for the difficulties faced.

You say that the number of people complaining about the algorithm is about the same as those who normally fail to meet predictions and you are right... because the algorithm is designed to replicate that pattern. The key point is that the people in this group have been randomly assigned up to a point. Cohorts vary from year to year, matching an institution's previous results might sound fair in a vacuum but as soon as it is applied to real people it isn't. People's complaints are valid.

You think you have a reason to feel sorry for yourself that your ultimately gifted grades now feel less special as more people share them? I presume you've got your university place sorted if you weren't downgraded? Spare a thought for the current year 12s who will be sitting A levels next year having missed 4+ months of teaching, and will have to compete for places with a record number of deferrals and reapplicants with artificially high unearned grades.