Random thoughts about education
Aug. 22nd, 2020 06:00 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shewhomustI am old enough to remember - in fact, I am old enough to have taken - the 11+ exam: children were examined at 11 to decide whether they should attend grammar or secondary modern schools. This was an even bigger deal than whether your A-level grades will qualify you for your preferred - or any - university. Years later, it was revealed that 11+ results were moderated to ensure that boys' results at 11+ were as good as girls: without this helpful algorithm, girls did better. We mature earlier, apparently, which is not fair to boys.
In other words, there is nothing new about passing exam results through an algorithm which ensures that the status quo is maintained.
That may not have been the sole purpose of Ofqual's muchy derided algorithm, but it was certainly a purpose, not just a side effect. I liked the placard seen at a demonstration (on the TV news, I think): NO ETONIANS WERE HARMED IN THE OPERATION OF THIS ALGORITHM. Ofqual's task was to ensure a) that allowing teachers to assess their students did not result in an overall rise in grades and b) that the success of each institution should reflect its past performance. Ministers who claim to be surprised by the outcome have not been paying attention, and blaming Ofqual for doing precisely what they were told to do is not a good look. Which isn't to say that I don't blame Ofqual, exactly: was there nothing they could do to stop this runaway train before it careered over the cliff? Currently we have very nearly the worst of all worlds: the young exam candidates have had a horribly stressful end to a very difficult academic year, there has been a phenomenal expansion in top grades... How hard would it have been to say, well, yes, this year grading has been generous, but that just balances the ways in which this age-group has had a particularly hard tome. Next year we will do better, we will either return to normal or we will devise a new normal... Too hard, apparently, just as it was too hard, in the time between lockdown and exam season either to devise a way to set exams or to do without them -
Because A-levels, it seems, have no value in themselves, they are simply the golden tickets by which we allocate university places. So possibly the universities should take more responsibility for the students' distress. There are plenty of ccases like the one quoted by Polly Toynbee in the Guardian: "Maimuna Hassan, a student of Somalian heritage with English as her third language, was predicted two A*s and an A, but lost her Cambridge engineering place after dropping grades." She believed this was because previous Ofsted reports had ranked her school as 'requires improvement' - but my question is, what was Cambridge University thinking? They look at a student who has built more than you would think possoble from a standing start, and they trust their judgement so little that they ask her not just for good A-levels, but for the very best; if the report is accurate, they are outsourcing their selection process to the exam board.
Half a century ago, when I was applying for universities, Oxford and Cambridge had their own entrance exam, and they decided who they wanted to admit in the basis of performance in that exam. If they wanted you, they asked for two E grades at A-level, the lowest grade - that is, they asked onhly that you qualify to go to university. This wasn't a more egalitarian system, since your school had to be prepeared and able to tutor for the entrance exam, but at least the universities were applying their own criteria instead of echoing the A-level resulkts. But that was in the bad old days, when only one in ten children went to university (or was it one in ten sat A-levels?): now, with half the population going to university and a huge growth in overseas students, the numbers are too great to do anything of the kind. Durham doesn't interview prospective students (if they did, it would be someone's full-time job).
But if I start on the unintended consequences of university expansion, I will be here all night. For the record, then: Durham, alarmed at the potental loss of the very large proportion of its studets who come from overseas were, apparently the word we use id &quit;ambitious" in offering places for the coming year. Now departments are being asked to accommodate all the additional students who qualify through this double assessment poocess - and while the overseas students may yet find that they are unable to take up their places, fewer than expected have so far withdrawn The city is going to be crowded come October. And if, at one end of the scale, more students than anticipated have got the grades and will come to Durham, at the other end of the scale, they will not have to take up offers they were retaining as back-up from places like - to pick a name at random - Sunderland. But that's not the goverment's problem, that's for the universities to sort out.
Speaking of the government, while Gavin Williamson dangles in the wind, does anyone know where the Prome Minister has got to?
In other words, there is nothing new about passing exam results through an algorithm which ensures that the status quo is maintained.
That may not have been the sole purpose of Ofqual's muchy derided algorithm, but it was certainly a purpose, not just a side effect. I liked the placard seen at a demonstration (on the TV news, I think): NO ETONIANS WERE HARMED IN THE OPERATION OF THIS ALGORITHM. Ofqual's task was to ensure a) that allowing teachers to assess their students did not result in an overall rise in grades and b) that the success of each institution should reflect its past performance. Ministers who claim to be surprised by the outcome have not been paying attention, and blaming Ofqual for doing precisely what they were told to do is not a good look. Which isn't to say that I don't blame Ofqual, exactly: was there nothing they could do to stop this runaway train before it careered over the cliff? Currently we have very nearly the worst of all worlds: the young exam candidates have had a horribly stressful end to a very difficult academic year, there has been a phenomenal expansion in top grades... How hard would it have been to say, well, yes, this year grading has been generous, but that just balances the ways in which this age-group has had a particularly hard tome. Next year we will do better, we will either return to normal or we will devise a new normal... Too hard, apparently, just as it was too hard, in the time between lockdown and exam season either to devise a way to set exams or to do without them -
Because A-levels, it seems, have no value in themselves, they are simply the golden tickets by which we allocate university places. So possibly the universities should take more responsibility for the students' distress. There are plenty of ccases like the one quoted by Polly Toynbee in the Guardian: "Maimuna Hassan, a student of Somalian heritage with English as her third language, was predicted two A*s and an A, but lost her Cambridge engineering place after dropping grades." She believed this was because previous Ofsted reports had ranked her school as 'requires improvement' - but my question is, what was Cambridge University thinking? They look at a student who has built more than you would think possoble from a standing start, and they trust their judgement so little that they ask her not just for good A-levels, but for the very best; if the report is accurate, they are outsourcing their selection process to the exam board.
Half a century ago, when I was applying for universities, Oxford and Cambridge had their own entrance exam, and they decided who they wanted to admit in the basis of performance in that exam. If they wanted you, they asked for two E grades at A-level, the lowest grade - that is, they asked onhly that you qualify to go to university. This wasn't a more egalitarian system, since your school had to be prepeared and able to tutor for the entrance exam, but at least the universities were applying their own criteria instead of echoing the A-level resulkts. But that was in the bad old days, when only one in ten children went to university (or was it one in ten sat A-levels?): now, with half the population going to university and a huge growth in overseas students, the numbers are too great to do anything of the kind. Durham doesn't interview prospective students (if they did, it would be someone's full-time job).
But if I start on the unintended consequences of university expansion, I will be here all night. For the record, then: Durham, alarmed at the potental loss of the very large proportion of its studets who come from overseas were, apparently the word we use id &quit;ambitious" in offering places for the coming year. Now departments are being asked to accommodate all the additional students who qualify through this double assessment poocess - and while the overseas students may yet find that they are unable to take up their places, fewer than expected have so far withdrawn The city is going to be crowded come October. And if, at one end of the scale, more students than anticipated have got the grades and will come to Durham, at the other end of the scale, they will not have to take up offers they were retaining as back-up from places like - to pick a name at random - Sunderland. But that's not the goverment's problem, that's for the universities to sort out.
Speaking of the government, while Gavin Williamson dangles in the wind, does anyone know where the Prome Minister has got to?
Macavity’s a Mystery Cat: he's called the Hidden Paw -
For he's the master criminal who can defy the Law.
He's the bafflement of Scotland Yard, the Flying Squad's despair:
For when they reach the scene of crime - Macavity's not there!
no subject
Date: 2020-08-22 05:39 pm (UTC)I passed that and Kent had single sex grammar schools.
Worst mistake I ever made leading to five years of utter hell.
The minister of primes was last seen in Scotland resolutely failing to obey the country code.
no subject
Date: 2020-08-23 10:03 am (UTC)The minister of primes was last seen in Scotland ...
And who is minding the shop while he's away?