Students Receive Results Amidst Sense Of Chaos And Confusion

Students across the United Kingdom received their A-Level results on Thursday 13th August 2020 amongst chaos and confusion caused by the governments new marking scheme for the qualifications. This summer's exams had been cancelled due to the Covid 19 pandemic so grades had to be awarded using a controversial modelling system with the key factors being the ranking order of pupils and the previous exam results of schools and colleges.

In England, 36% of entries had grades lower than their teachers predicted and 3% were down two grades, prompting anger among schools, colleges and students.

Oxford college 'will honour UK A-level offers'

Anger over 'unfair' A-level results

Confronted by Nina Bunting Mitcham on Friday's Any Questions, Mr Gibb promised the appeals process would be "robust".

Nina, a pupil at New College, Stamford, was predicted to achieve ABB, and scored As and Bs in her mock exams - but was handed three D grades.

"It's got to be a mistake, I have never been a D-grade student.

"I feel my life has been completely ruined, I can't get into any universities with such grades or progress further in my life," she told Mr Gibb.

Samantha Smith, a grammar school student from Telford, told BBC Radio 4's Today programme that her results had been downgraded from As and A* grades to a B, E and U.

"I know I didn't sit the exam but I didn't think I'd be treated as if I didn't turn up for the exam," she said.

"I've now got no university places, because of the algorithm and the system of being treated as if your postcode matters more than your potential."

Following an interview with the government's advisery body “Ofqual”, the following key points were raised with regard to the new grading system.

Key points

1. In the context of exams this summer being cancelled, we had 2 broad aims: to make sure as many students as possible could get grades so they could move on to the next stage of their lives and to do that in as fair a way as possible.

2. Overall A level results in England are higher at grade A and above compared to 2019 (27.6% in 2020 compared with 25.2% in 2019). This reflects the approach to awarding grades this summer and the decisions that, where possible, have been taken in students’ favour, as part of the standardisation process.

3. The majority of grades awarded to students are the same or within one grade of the centre assessment grades (CAGs) – 96.4% at A level and 91.5% at AS.

4. Students who are not happy with their calculated grade can ask their school or college about the appeals system or they can choose to sit an exam in the Autumn.

5. Entries for reformed AS qualifications in England have dropped by over 26% compared to last summer. This makes it much more difficult to interpret any changes in year-on-year results.

Following reform, AS entries have declined, and this has continued this summer. Entries are down from just over 1.1 million in 2016 to 70,500 this year. This means that entries to some AS subjects are now relatively small. Where the cohorts are small and changing year on year, outcomes are likely to change, making any comparisons over time difficult.

Instead, we have analysed the number of 17-year-old students taking at least one AS qualification in 2020 compared to previous years. This is shown in the table below. The number of students taking at least one AS qualification has declined significantly since 2017, following a smaller decline between 2016 and 2017.

In the absence of exams, teachers were asked to submit their predicted grades for each student. These marks were based on mock exams and coursework and were then moderated using a statistical model system designed to ensure consistency and prevent teachers inflating predicted grades.

Due to the original error, many students who had offers in place were rejected but once the new marking system was up and running, had new offers made, sometimes by different universities.

The system of allocating university places to students is still ongoing. Some may have to go through the clearing system to try and get a place on their preferred course.