Category: Y11

Schools were given a clear directive this year that they need to tell students “where the marks are coming from, what those marks mean and just don’t tell them their final grade or you’ll be in trouble.” As a result of this approach, there is hope that fewer appeals will happen. Despite being open about everything with your grades on report cards and exams etc., it’s bound to still have many unhappy kids who want more time for an appeal because they feel as if something went wrong during testing.

After 2020’s grading fiasco, ‘algorithm’ has become a bit of a dirty word in education. Mention the idea of using an algorithm anywhere in the grading process, and you’ll have panicked parents demanding answers. But… Algorithms aren’t the enemy. Here’s why. An algorithm is a set of explicit instructions for completing a task. That’s it….

The proposed alternative to ‘exams’ this year is seriously problematic. Here’s why.
First let me state for the record that there’s no easy answer. Nothing is going to be able to fairly ‘grade’ students and take into account the different experiences they’ve had this year of education and keep everyone happy.
What Gavin Williamson has asked of Ofqual is an impossible task.