A-level Angst and Anger

It’s been a few days since my last blog when I wrote about the issues relating to using data and statistics and as a result anomalies in the patterns will always be present. Yet in the case of the statistical algorithm used to determine the exam grades the outliers were individuals with hopes, dreams and aspirations. Young influential people starting out in life not statistical anomalies. 

These ‘outliers’ have made their voices clear over the last week and as they have it has become apparent to all that perhaps they were not outliers after all, instead they were the norm. It appears after analysis of the results, by people much more qualified than myself, that a significant number of students have been treated unfairly compared to other groups.  Due to the nature of how this algorithm works it appears to have favoured private selective schools due to small group sizes and stable historical results. Schools and colleges with larger teaching groups and more ‘volatile’ past cohort results seem to have been downgraded. 

Of course the disappointment of not getting the results deserved gas been devastating for many but is only part of the story. For a large number of individuals this ‘fiasco’ as it has been described has also resulted in at worst an uncertain future and at best a compromised way forward. 

Late yesterday afternoon the government (under enormous pressure) performed one of the most spectacular u-turns in recent political history and reverted the grades to those originally decided by the teacher. 

The obvious knock on effects have now occurred. Students who are now in possession of the grades quite rightly banging down University admissions tutors doors and asking for a place. 

The question now occupying the nation, ‘Who is to blame?’. A cock-up of this magnitude quite rightly deserves an inquiry,  it deserves someone to say I’m sorry and I need to go away for a bit. The apologies have come all day but the resignations?  No! They remain absent from the public eye. 

What is currently happening is one group blaming another and whilst this is allowed to happen we will ultimately witness a stand-off. All stand-offs result in an outcome of some kind.

To determine the grades of thousands of students was always going to be a nightmare. Even with exams it is uber difficult thing to do.  Everyone in education agreed with that. The unions accepted that a standardised model was appropriate. But when it was obvious it was going wrong, at the point when the Scottish results were criticised so strongly, at that point surely it was time to put the brakes on and change direction?  But the way forward was bodged. Last minute announcements late at night led to greater confusion and for some students false hope. 

The exams regulator may have put too much faith in the algorithm but the DFE was overseeing the whole operation and the management of the process was simply poor. 

Poorer still was that these students had already had the end of their school lives severely compromised and the uncertainty that has led to anger and angst has been potentially damaging. These students are the next generation of doctors, lawyers, vets, entrepreneurs, managers, shopkeepers, teachers and all the jobs which are vital for society. These students are the people who will look after the current generation when we get old.  These students are the people who will take this country forward in the years to come. 

Let’s hope that in the coming future these students remember this experience and when they are the politicians running our country that they draw on the experience and do better!