Gosh, if any of this is accurate the 'summer opening' of Spain would appear to have been too much too fast.
Extraordinary. Surely this is either needed now or not at all. By 18th September all I think we can confidently predict is that things will be very different from where they are today.
In some ways it makes me laugh how much flack the Government in this country is getting from the critics solemnly declaring that every day of delay from imposing lockdown back in March cost hundreds or thousands of lives. That they didn't learn from what was happening elsewhere and were "prioritising the economy" over all else.
And then we get stories like this claiming that Spain are intending to implement a "3 phase lockdown", not now but, wait for it... in 6 weeks! Which each phase lasting only a couple of weeks and therefore too soon to assess whether the previous phase has had any affect!
Scott will condemn Boris for doing the same things he cheered Cameron for.
Cameron didn't denude the party of all talent to shore up his position, and he sacked his SPAD
I condemn BoZo for the things he does.
There is no comparison.
What talent ? Sajid Javid ?
Now lets compare the 'talent' in Cameron's government - Fox, Grayling, IDS, Lansley, Letwin, Osborne, Warsi.
You condemn Boris because you've chosen a different side just as you cheered Cameron because you chose his side.
So you cheered Cameron for the same things you condemn Boris for.
Javid, Hunt, Ellwood, Greg Clark, not to mention the expelled Clarke, Stewart, Hammond, Gauke, Greening would all have been in the top third performers in the current cabinet. No doubt it will be pointed out they are nearly all remainers, but thats the point, if you exclude a large part of the party you end up with less talent.
And all most of them had to do to stay in the party and their jobs was not to sabotage their Prime Minister on a crucial vote when the government was barely holding on in Parliament and a Marxist was biting at its heels. And yet somehow that was beyond their talent and competence...
A Prime Minister who had only got his job by sabotaging his predecessor on a crucial vote when the government was barely holding on in Parliament and a Marxist was biting at her stiletto heels.
Then crushed said Marxist in an election the way his predecessor so infamously failed to, thus justifying his actions entirely.
I don't know if giving people predicted grades is much more arbitrary and unfair than grading people based on how much they can memorise and write down in a couple of hours. Especially when some people have paid to be spoon-fed the relevant information in smaller classes with more resources than everyone else.
Well - you could make that argument in any year. This is not about whether or not to change the system, it is about how to award grades which rank pari passu with previous years by rewarding pupils justly based on what they would have got if they had taken the exams.
I had 6 A level tutees this year (4 Russian, 2 French). In normal circumstances I would be confident of all 6 getting A/A* due to the traditional beasting I give them in the last two weeks with past papers. This year they all feel like they are getting fucked. They (and their parents) blame the government.
The government are stepping on a landmine here and will soon be carrying a bloody foot around in their hat. If you ever want to raise the venomous and undying enmity of Middle (as opposed to Little) England then fuck around with their kids' A level results.
You say that they blame the government. Do they agree with me that the exams should have gone ahead?
Yes. They all think a way should have been found to do them.
I think that the reason that exams were cancelled for all was this -
It was assumed that the schools best able to teach through the epidemic - remote schooling or other - would be the private schools and the leading state schools.
It was further assumed that the probable result would be worse grades overall, with everyone taking some kind of hit. But the bottom end (poorest students) would have been a disaster.
Leading to a university intake which would be the worst for the "diversity" metrics in a generation. Or 2.
That is a good point. I had finished the course with all my exam groups just before lockdown started and seeing what was probably going to happen had sent them off loaded down with past papers to go through.
Teachers in other schools may well have had significant chunks still to teach and if their pupils did not have easy access to e-learning they may have had little chance of ever covering those last sections of the specification. They would have been at a major disadvantage.
One feature of PB is the generally high educational background.
I do not think that many of the posters here have experience of how dire the lower strata of the UK educational system is.
Another friend of my wife's taught (deliberately chose them to work in) in "failing" schools. Mission to help the dis-advantaged etc. She stuck it out for quite a few years, before burning out.
There really is only one solution for these boats. We need to eliminate the pull factor. If people wish to seek asylum in the UK, our processing centres should be in Africa and probably India or similar. People would apply there. Easier for genuine seekers of asylum to get there.
I've had a similar idea that over-crowding in British prisons should be solved by building prisons in Africa and shipping the criminals out there.
Would also be a boost to the local economies and so could be done via the the foreign aid budget.
Vile.
Rather a racist sentiment CHB?
I've recommended prisons in Sub-sarahan Africa here for ages, great to see others arriving at a similar conclusion. I'd only put violent criminals serving long sentences in them, because there wouldn't be any point shipping someone out for 30 days.
Transportation? Tried that with N America and later Australia and look how that turned out!
Don't fancy get thumped at cricket by the likes of Gabon in 50 years.
A Gabon team of sufficient skill to thump Scotland, but unable to beat England is the ideal outcome.
On topic, it's clearly the case that teachers' assessments of predicted grades (rather than ranks) are of little use, because if taken as accurate they would simply damage the outcomes of students of those teachers/schools that make realistic predictions, and benefit those where predictions are over-optimistic. We know from UCAS predicted grades, and from self-evaluation during and before inspection, that some schools/colleges are wildly optimistic, while others are impressively realistic.
By contrast, the injunction that teachers/schools must rank students in order is more meaningful, because generally they should be rather good at this. Even if over-optimistic, teachers who think all their darlings will get high grades can still distinguish the rank order of students within these grades. So this has the potential to make the hierarchy of students' grades fair and reasonably equitable within each exam centre.
The problem we are then left with is making the grades/ranks equitable between, rather than within, exam centres. This is much harder, but not beyond the wit of Ofqual. Obviously historic results are likely to play a part, but they should not determine outcomes where a centre can make a good case for a significant improvement in the current cohort. Centres should be allowed to make that case. (I doubt, though, that there will be any complaints that no centre makes a case for a significantly weaker current cohort - though there will be some of those, and they are likely to get away with it this year).
It is all very tricky, but not quite as much as some fear. Of course there will be complaints - but there are always many during a normal exam season.
Scott will condemn Boris for doing the same things he cheered Cameron for.
Cameron didn't denude the party of all talent to shore up his position, and he sacked his SPAD
I condemn BoZo for the things he does.
There is no comparison.
What talent ? Sajid Javid ?
Now lets compare the 'talent' in Cameron's government - Fox, Grayling, IDS, Lansley, Letwin, Osborne, Warsi.
You condemn Boris because you've chosen a different side just as you cheered Cameron because you chose his side.
So you cheered Cameron for the same things you condemn Boris for.
Javid, Hunt, Ellwood, Greg Clark, not to mention the expelled Clarke, Stewart, Hammond, Gauke, Greening would all have been in the top third performers in the current cabinet. No doubt it will be pointed out they are nearly all remainers, but thats the point, if you exclude a large part of the party you end up with less talent.
Hunt was offered a cabinet job but declined.
Javid is a loss but given what has happened its been vital that the Downing Street neighbours are closely aligned.
Ken Clarke and others had decided to retire.
So who does that leave ? Ellwood and Greg Clarke. I can't even remember what jobs they've had which shows how little impression they've made one way or another.
In fact how many of your list have had impressive cabinet careers ? Hunt and Ken Clarke. The rest are 6/10 people at best.
As to being Remainers given how the 2017-19 governments were undermined by defections and resignations (and that includes Boris) then I do have some sympathy for wanting to reduce the risk of that happening again.
I am not saying there are not benefits of having a cabinet that is more cohesive by blocking a large wing of the party. I would recommend such an approach to Starmer for example. But lets not pretend that by blocking a large proportion of the candidates you dont end up with a less talented cabinet. It is just simple maths that selecting from a subset of the party will give less talent - accepting it may be more of a team working together so talent is not the only consideration.
I got predicted the lowest A level grades in my school and ended up with some of the best grades, including going from an N prediction in chemistry to an A and the only maths A in the whole year.
I would have been pretty angry had the teachers got to decide what my grades would be. It's ridiculous.
I sometimes see that, with someone turning poor mock results into great actual results. But far more often I’ve seen pupils whose excuse for a poor mock grade of “well I didn’t revise for them so I’ll be much better in the real thing” turn out the same results in the summer.
I can’t say why your teachers thought what they did, though sometimes a low prediction in mocks is used as a wake up call to get a student working.
Well if there is sometimes improvement and sometimes not compared to the mock results, then it's hardly a sound basis for the final A level results.
The reason I did better is that school had finished a few months early and we had a chance to study at home, which is far more effective (for me anyway) than trying to learn anything in school.
A fellow student, back in the day, was notorious for doing absolutely no work. Even, IIRC, repeated his second year. However having swanned his was way through the final year, after the Easter break he went to ground. Was never seen in any of his usual haunts, and ended up doing very well indeed.
I don't know if giving people predicted grades is much more arbitrary and unfair than grading people based on how much they can memorise and write down in a couple of hours. Especially when some people have paid to be spoon-fed the relevant information in smaller classes with more resources than everyone else.
Well - you could make that argument in any year. This is not about whether or not to change the system, it is about how to award grades which rank pari passu with previous years by rewarding pupils justly based on what they would have got if they had taken the exams.
I had 6 A level tutees this year (4 Russian, 2 French). In normal circumstances I would be confident of all 6 getting A/A* due to the traditional beasting I give them in the last two weeks with past papers. This year they all feel like they are getting fucked. They (and their parents) blame the government.
The government are stepping on a landmine here and will soon be carrying a bloody foot around in their hat. If you ever want to raise the venomous and undying enmity of Middle (as opposed to Little) England then fuck around with their kids' A level results.
You say that they blame the government. Do they agree with me that the exams should have gone ahead?
Yes. They all think a way should have been found to do them.
I think that the reason that exams were cancelled for all was this -
It was assumed that the schools best able to teach through the epidemic - remote schooling or other - would be the private schools and the leading state schools.
It was further assumed that the probable result would be worse grades overall, with everyone taking some kind of hit. But the bottom end (poorest students) would have been a disaster.
Leading to a university intake which would be the worst for the "diversity" metrics in a generation. Or 2.
That is a good point. I had finished the course with all my exam groups just before lockdown started and seeing what was probably going to happen had sent them off loaded down with past papers to go through.
Teachers in other schools may well have had significant chunks still to teach and if their pupils did not have easy access to e-learning they may have had little chance of ever covering those last sections of the specification. They would have been at a major disadvantage.
Leaving aside that this doesn't say much for the quality of teaching that people were receiving in the first place, isn't that an argument for creating an additional sitting of exams in the Autumn for those that really did lose out? And also i suspect that the entry standards to university this year will ultimately be a hell of a lot lower anyway.
People being advantaged by going to expensive schools is not a new thing, and the university system is surely not so devoid of creativety that they couldn't have come up with additional solutions. Hell, they could have used the 4 months spent doing very little actually speaking to schools and finding out where it might be necessary to make allowances for those to whom they had made offers!
There really is only one solution for these boats. We need to eliminate the pull factor. If people wish to seek asylum in the UK, our processing centres should be in Africa and probably India or similar. People would apply there. Easier for genuine seekers of asylum to get there.
I've had a similar idea that over-crowding in British prisons should be solved by building prisons in Africa and shipping the criminals out there.
Would also be a boost to the local economies and so could be done via the the foreign aid budget.
Vile.
Rather a racist sentiment CHB?
I've recommended prisons in Sub-sarahan Africa here for ages, great to see others arriving at a similar conclusion. I'd only put violent criminals serving long sentences in them, because there wouldn't be any point shipping someone out for 30 days.
Transportation? Tried that with N America and later Australia and look how that turned out!
Don't fancy get thumped at cricket by the likes of Gabon in 50 years.
A Gabon team of sufficient skill to thump Scotland, but unable to beat England is the ideal outcome.
(I'd love to see more strong cricketing nations)
Scotland beat England in their last ODI in case you have forgotten.
Scott will condemn Boris for doing the same things he cheered Cameron for.
Cameron didn't denude the party of all talent to shore up his position, and he sacked his SPAD
I condemn BoZo for the things he does.
There is no comparison.
What talent ? Sajid Javid ?
Now lets compare the 'talent' in Cameron's government - Fox, Grayling, IDS, Lansley, Letwin, Osborne, Warsi.
You condemn Boris because you've chosen a different side just as you cheered Cameron because you chose his side.
So you cheered Cameron for the same things you condemn Boris for.
Javid, Hunt, Ellwood, Greg Clark, not to mention the expelled Clarke, Stewart, Hammond, Gauke, Greening would all have been in the top third performers in the current cabinet. No doubt it will be pointed out they are nearly all remainers, but thats the point, if you exclude a large part of the party you end up with less talent.
It's notable how May's government containing these top performers was so successful.
I don't know if giving people predicted grades is much more arbitrary and unfair than grading people based on how much they can memorise and write down in a couple of hours. Especially when some people have paid to be spoon-fed the relevant information in smaller classes with more resources than everyone else.
Well - you could make that argument in any year. This is not about whether or not to change the system, it is about how to award grades which rank pari passu with previous years by rewarding pupils justly based on what they would have got if they had taken the exams.
I had 6 A level tutees this year (4 Russian, 2 French). In normal circumstances I would be confident of all 6 getting A/A* due to the traditional beasting I give them in the last two weeks with past papers. This year they all feel like they are getting fucked. They (and their parents) blame the government.
The government are stepping on a landmine here and will soon be carrying a bloody foot around in their hat. If you ever want to raise the venomous and undying enmity of Middle (as opposed to Little) England then fuck around with their kids' A level results.
You say that they blame the government. Do they agree with me that the exams should have gone ahead?
Yes. They all think a way should have been found to do them.
I think that the reason that exams were cancelled for all was this -
It was assumed that the schools best able to teach through the epidemic - remote schooling or other - would be the private schools and the leading state schools.
It was further assumed that the probable result would be worse grades overall, with everyone taking some kind of hit. But the bottom end (poorest students) would have been a disaster.
Leading to a university intake which would be the worst for the "diversity" metrics in a generation. Or 2.
That is a good point. I had finished the course with all my exam groups just before lockdown started and seeing what was probably going to happen had sent them off loaded down with past papers to go through.
Teachers in other schools may well have had significant chunks still to teach and if their pupils did not have easy access to e-learning they may have had little chance of ever covering those last sections of the specification. They would have been at a major disadvantage.
One feature of PB is the generally high educational background.
I do not think that many of the posters here have experience of how dire the lower strata of the UK educational system is.
Another friend of my wife's taught (deliberately chose them to work in) in "failing" schools. Mission to help the dis-advantaged etc. She stuck it out for quite a few years, before burning out.
I have, and it's not nearly as bad as you are suggesting. Of course there are still some sink schools, but the number has reduced significantly over the last 10 years. Look at the improvement in exam results, and inspection grades, in London schools over the last 10 years following the London Challenge. Genuinely impressive: the vast majority of London schools are now pretty good.
The criticism that the Government will rightly attract on and after Thursday stems from a failure to consult and cede responsibility to Headteachers since March. Instead they have come up with this Frankenstein-like approach of school assessed grades moderated by computer with no effective means to appeal.
An alternative process would have been:
April - DfE consult with Headteachers on basis by which school will set grades and quality assurance to be built into the process.
May - DfE develop and populate with comparative data the tool specific to each school to enable them to set grades on the agreed basis
June - agree with schools the baseline data in their tool, modifying where agreed that the baseline is inappropriate - otherwise idle school inspectors, regional schools commissioners and local authority school improvement teams could have managed this validation of tools
May thru June - teachers do first pass of assessed grades on agreed basis
July - schools input assessed grades and reviewed with teachers until subject-by-subject the distribution of grades matches the baseline data within agreed tolerances
August - validated grades communicated by schools to UCAS and then pupils on results day and finally to DfE for aggregation. No national comparisons to previous years published this year.
I don't know if giving people predicted grades is much more arbitrary and unfair than grading people based on how much they can memorise and write down in a couple of hours. Especially when some people have paid to be spoon-fed the relevant information in smaller classes with more resources than everyone else.
Well - you could make that argument in any year. This is not about whether or not to change the system, it is about how to award grades which rank pari passu with previous years by rewarding pupils justly based on what they would have got if they had taken the exams.
I had 6 A level tutees this year (4 Russian, 2 French). In normal circumstances I would be confident of all 6 getting A/A* due to the traditional beasting I give them in the last two weeks with past papers. This year they all feel like they are getting fucked. They (and their parents) blame the government.
The government are stepping on a landmine here and will soon be carrying a bloody foot around in their hat. If you ever want to raise the venomous and undying enmity of Middle (as opposed to Little) England then fuck around with their kids' A level results.
You say that they blame the government. Do they agree with me that the exams should have gone ahead?
Yes. They all think a way should have been found to do them.
I think that the reason that exams were cancelled for all was this -
It was assumed that the schools best able to teach through the epidemic - remote schooling or other - would be the private schools and the leading state schools.
It was further assumed that the probable result would be worse grades overall, with everyone taking some kind of hit. But the bottom end (poorest students) would have been a disaster.
Leading to a university intake which would be the worst for the "diversity" metrics in a generation. Or 2.
That is a good point. I had finished the course with all my exam groups just before lockdown started and seeing what was probably going to happen had sent them off loaded down with past papers to go through.
Teachers in other schools may well have had significant chunks still to teach and if their pupils did not have easy access to e-learning they may have had little chance of ever covering those last sections of the specification. They would have been at a major disadvantage.
Leaving aside that this doesn't say much for the quality of teaching that people were receiving in the first place, isn't that an argument for creating an additional sitting of exams in the Autumn for those that really did lose out? And also i suspect that the entry standards to university this year will ultimately be a hell of a lot lower anyway.
People being advantaged by going to expensive schools is not a new thing, and the university system is surely not so devoid of creativety that they couldn't have come up with additional solutions. Hell, they could have used the 4 months spent doing very little actually speaking to schools and finding out where it might be necessary to make allowances for those to whom they had made offers!
Education is a bargain made between the teachers, the school, the parents and the pupil.
In private schools, all four are on board for the work involved. That is a massive advantage.
For the worst performing cohort in the UK (and in other countries), this is not so.
The idea that you could just parachute a bunch of extra super-teachers into the "failing" schools and that will fix the problem... is as misguided as the idea that the homeless just need a place to stay.
Shouldn't be too difficult for Sir Keir to set the agenda this week. All he has to do is point to his public statements in March explaining what the government was doing wrong and promoting an alternative plan.
Shouldn't be too difficult for Sir Keir to set the agenda this week. All he has to do is point to his public statements in March explaining what the government was doing wrong and promoting an alternative plan.
He could also point to his public statements in April, May, June and July explaining what the government was doing wrong and promoting an alternative plan.
I don't know if giving people predicted grades is much more arbitrary and unfair than grading people based on how much they can memorise and write down in a couple of hours. Especially when some people have paid to be spoon-fed the relevant information in smaller classes with more resources than everyone else.
Well - you could make that argument in any year. This is not about whether or not to change the system, it is about how to award grades which rank pari passu with previous years by rewarding pupils justly based on what they would have got if they had taken the exams.
I had 6 A level tutees this year (4 Russian, 2 French). In normal circumstances I would be confident of all 6 getting A/A* due to the traditional beasting I give them in the last two weeks with past papers. This year they all feel like they are getting fucked. They (and their parents) blame the government.
The government are stepping on a landmine here and will soon be carrying a bloody foot around in their hat. If you ever want to raise the venomous and undying enmity of Middle (as opposed to Little) England then fuck around with their kids' A level results.
You say that they blame the government. Do they agree with me that the exams should have gone ahead?
Yes. They all think a way should have been found to do them.
I think that the reason that exams were cancelled for all was this -
It was assumed that the schools best able to teach through the epidemic - remote schooling or other - would be the private schools and the leading state schools.
It was further assumed that the probable result would be worse grades overall, with everyone taking some kind of hit. But the bottom end (poorest students) would have been a disaster.
Leading to a university intake which would be the worst for the "diversity" metrics in a generation. Or 2.
That is a good point. I had finished the course with all my exam groups just before lockdown started and seeing what was probably going to happen had sent them off loaded down with past papers to go through.
Teachers in other schools may well have had significant chunks still to teach and if their pupils did not have easy access to e-learning they may have had little chance of ever covering those last sections of the specification. They would have been at a major disadvantage.
One feature of PB is the generally high educational background.
I do not think that many of the posters here have experience of how dire the lower strata of the UK educational system is.
Another friend of my wife's taught (deliberately chose them to work in) in "failing" schools. Mission to help the dis-advantaged etc. She stuck it out for quite a few years, before burning out.
I have, and it's not nearly as bad as you are suggesting. Of course there are still some sink schools, but the number has reduced significantly over the last 10 years. Look at the improvement in exam results, and inspection grades, in London schools over the last 10 years following the London Challenge. Genuinely impressive: the vast majority of London schools are now pretty good.
The problem has got better. But there is a still a massive attainment gap.
Shouldn't be too difficult for Sir Keir to set the agenda this week. All he has to do is point to his public statements in March explaining what the government was doing wrong and promoting an alternative plan.
It doesn’t work like that; ask Labour over the financial crash or the Tories over Black Wednesday.
On topic, it's clearly the case that teachers' assessments of predicted grades (rather than ranks) are of little use, because if taken as accurate they would simply damage the outcomes of students of those teachers/schools that make realistic predictions, and benefit those where predictions are over-optimistic. We know from UCAS predicted grades, and from self-evaluation during and before inspection, that some schools/colleges are wildly optimistic, while others are impressively realistic.
By contrast, the injunction that teachers/schools must rank students in order is more meaningful, because generally they should be rather good at this. Even if over-optimistic, teachers who think all their darlings will get high grades can still distinguish the rank order of students within these grades. So this has the potential to make the hierarchy of students' grades fair and reasonably equitable within each exam centre.
The problem we are then left with is making the grades/ranks equitable between, rather than within, exam centres. This is much harder, but not beyond the wit of Ofqual. Obviously historic results are likely to play a part, but they should not determine outcomes where a centre can make a good case for a significant improvement in the current cohort. Centres should be allowed to make that case. (I doubt, though, that there will be any complaints that no centre makes a case for a significantly weaker current cohort - though there will be some of those, and they are likely to get away with it this year).
It is all very tricky, but not quite as much as some fear. Of course there will be complaints - but there are always many during a normal exam season.
Working out if this year's cohort is better or worse than last years cohort is actually impossible as this year's 'A' level cohort were the first year of the new GCSEs so there is nothing to work from.
To highlight how bad it is this is the history of the twins
2002 born 2013 - left primary school but no formal closure as school closed for last week of school year due to broken water pipe (the main pipe for teesside) ran across the school entrance. 2018 - guinea pigs for new GCSEs 2019 - no AS levels (as part of new exams AS levels are no long supported) 2020 - no A levels
Ignoring the 2013 bit good luck trying to work out how to do any cohort sanity checks as there isn't a valid GCSE baseline to work from
I don't know if giving people predicted grades is much more arbitrary and unfair than grading people based on how much they can memorise and write down in a couple of hours. Especially when some people have paid to be spoon-fed the relevant information in smaller classes with more resources than everyone else.
Well - you could make that argument in any year. This is not about whether or not to change the system, it is about how to award grades which rank pari passu with previous years by rewarding pupils justly based on what they would have got if they had taken the exams.
I had 6 A level tutees this year (4 Russian, 2 French). In normal circumstances I would be confident of all 6 getting A/A* due to the traditional beasting I give them in the last two weeks with past papers. This year they all feel like they are getting fucked. They (and their parents) blame the government.
The government are stepping on a landmine here and will soon be carrying a bloody foot around in their hat. If you ever want to raise the venomous and undying enmity of Middle (as opposed to Little) England then fuck around with their kids' A level results.
You say that they blame the government. Do they agree with me that the exams should have gone ahead?
Yes. They all think a way should have been found to do them.
I think that the reason that exams were cancelled for all was this -
It was assumed that the schools best able to teach through the epidemic - remote schooling or other - would be the private schools and the leading state schools.
It was further assumed that the probable result would be worse grades overall, with everyone taking some kind of hit. But the bottom end (poorest students) would have been a disaster.
Leading to a university intake which would be the worst for the "diversity" metrics in a generation. Or 2.
That is a good point. I had finished the course with all my exam groups just before lockdown started and seeing what was probably going to happen had sent them off loaded down with past papers to go through.
Teachers in other schools may well have had significant chunks still to teach and if their pupils did not have easy access to e-learning they may have had little chance of ever covering those last sections of the specification. They would have been at a major disadvantage.
Leaving aside that this doesn't say much for the quality of teaching that people were receiving in the first place, isn't that an argument for creating an additional sitting of exams in the Autumn for those that really did lose out? And also i suspect that the entry standards to university this year will ultimately be a hell of a lot lower anyway.
People being advantaged by going to expensive schools is not a new thing, and the university system is surely not so devoid of creativety that they couldn't have come up with additional solutions. Hell, they could have used the 4 months spent doing very little actually speaking to schools and finding out where it might be necessary to make allowances for those to whom they had made offers!
Education is a bargain made between the teachers, the school, the parents and the pupil.
In private schools, all four are on board for the work involved. That is a massive advantage.
For the worst performing cohort in the UK (and in other countries), this is not so.
The idea that you could just parachute a bunch of extra super-teachers into the "failing" schools and that will fix the problem... is as misguided as the idea that the homeless just need a place to stay.
I'm not sure if the latter paragraph was a general point or a misinterpretation of what i wrote. I just meant that communication with schools could have anticipated where the situation might have impacted on student grades in exams and the university grade requirements could where appropriate have been revised when advising if places had been achieved.
I would have been shafted by this system. Three A grades from there? You're having a laugh!
I know that feeling - twin A got a 9 in GCSE maths having looked like getting a 5/6 for 2 years (she rushed stuff and continually made silly mistakes). This time round you could give her a A or a D and justify both results.
I don't know if giving people predicted grades is much more arbitrary and unfair than grading people based on how much they can memorise and write down in a couple of hours. Especially when some people have paid to be spoon-fed the relevant information in smaller classes with more resources than everyone else.
Well - you could make that argument in any year. This is not about whether or not to change the system, it is about how to award grades which rank pari passu with previous years by rewarding pupils justly based on what they would have got if they had taken the exams.
Of course if we go back to the 60s and 70s , many of those now sitting A Levels and GCSEs would probably not even have been entered for the much earlier versions of A Levels and O Levels.
I don't know if giving people predicted grades is much more arbitrary and unfair than grading people based on how much they can memorise and write down in a couple of hours. Especially when some people have paid to be spoon-fed the relevant information in smaller classes with more resources than everyone else.
and undying enmity of Middle (as opposed to Little) England then fuck around with their kids' A level results.
You say that they blame the government. Do they agree with me that the exams should have gone ahead?
Yes. They all think a way should
Teachers in other schools may well have had significant chunks still to teach and if their pupils did not have easy access to e-learning they may have had little chance of ever covering those last sections of the specification. They would have been at a major disadvantage.
People being advantaged by going to expensive schools is not a new thing, and the university system is surely not so devoid of creativety that they couldn't have come up with additional solutions. Hell, they could have used the 4 months spent doing very little actually speaking to schools and finding out where it might be necessary to make allowances for those to whom they had made offers!
The idea that you could just parachute a bunch of extra super-teachers into the "failing" schools and that will fix the problem...
Just as misguided as the idea that grammar schools will fix the problem you rightly identify... lack of parental engagement amongst the most disadvantaged... grammar school ethos in all schools, on the other hand...
Carl Heneghan (Oxford Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine) recently tweeted to say that on Spanish evidence the case fatality rate could be nearer 0.1% than 0.2%. Why lock people up for a CFR of 0.1-0.2%?
The 1957-58 flu epidemic had a CFR of 0.6-0.7%. There were serious flu epidemics in 1968-69, 1975-76, 2008-09, 2017-18.
We can't deal with viruses by locking up the healthy.
Anyone who gets marked down to the extent that it costs them their university "place" this year might actually have got a lucky break...
Until they try to get in next year when every university will have eleven applicants for every place.
This is why I’m going back to university in September come what may.
You are doing the right thing. Having done a degree with the OU with minimal contact time I know that you can still receive quality tuition remotely. The teaching materials are also important and so is self - motivation.
This is the price we paid for closing the schools and "protecting" the least vulnerable in our society. Its tough on them and unfair. And frankly we did not think hard enough about it before making the decisions for them.
Closing the schools was not to protect "the least vulnerable". It was stop children from infecting highly "vulnerable" people, either directly or indirectly.
'Mornin' all! Sounds like 'You can't possibly have achieved an A; your school has never had a pupil with one before.' Hmmm.
The primary school my younger son attended had, his year, three boys who were each capable of an 11+ 'pass' in the opinion of the experienced final year teacher. However, the rules said that only two could. On exam day my son had a cold. Result.... 6-7 years later he said that 'couldn't possibly have been 'that good' he'd failed his 11+, hadn't he?
One thing that might happen as a result of this is that there is finally a very public debate about the way exams happen and why they are producing such inferior results for the poorest, who arguably stand to benefit the most from getting a good education.
Obviously, there are a number of reasons, most of which have nothing to do with the exams themselves. But if it sparks a debate about class sizes and forces the government to lower them, and leads to an understanding that postcodes should be less important than talent in any system, as horrendous as this is going to be over the next three months at least some good will come of it.
It should also spark a debate about the use of algorithms to make decisions about people’s lives. Why should we have any confidence in them, in who determines them, who writes them?
For all those PBers who say Cummings and his rule breaking will be forgotten:
"And Covid Britain now has its own drumbeat.One of them is called Dominic Cummings. It was especially noticeable in the North East, where his notorious dash to Barnard Castle occurred. But the 'Cummings Effect' is real.
His name was raised several times with me unprompted. And rightly or wrongly, he has damaged Boris and the Government."
For all those PBers who say Cummings and his rule breaking will be forgotten:
"And Covid Britain now has its own drumbeat.One of them is called Dominic Cummings. It was especially noticeable in the North East, where his notorious dash to Barnard Castle occurred. But the 'Cummings Effect' is real.
His name was raised several times with me unprompted. And rightly or wrongly, he has damaged Boris and the Government."
Scott will condemn Boris for doing the same things he cheered Cameron for.
Cameron didn't denude the party of all talent to shore up his position, and he sacked his SPAD
I condemn BoZo for the things he does.
There is no comparison.
What talent ? Sajid Javid ?
Now lets compare the 'talent' in Cameron's government - Fox, Grayling, IDS, Lansley, Letwin, Osborne, Warsi.
You condemn Boris because you've chosen a different side just as you cheered Cameron because you chose his side.
So you cheered Cameron for the same things you condemn Boris for.
Javid, Hunt, Ellwood, Greg Clark, not to mention the expelled Clarke, Stewart, Hammond, Gauke, Greening would all have been in the top third performers in the current cabinet. No doubt it will be pointed out they are nearly all remainers, but thats the point, if you exclude a large part of the party you end up with less talent.
Hunt was offered a cabinet job but declined.
Javid is a loss but given what has happened its been vital that the Downing Street neighbours are closely aligned.
Ken Clarke and others had decided to retire.
So who does that leave ? Ellwood and Greg Clarke. I can't even remember what jobs they've had which shows how little impression they've made one way or another.
In fact how many of your list have had impressive cabinet careers ? Hunt and Ken Clarke. The rest are 6/10 people at best.
As to being Remainers given how the 2017-19 governments were undermined by defections and resignations (and that includes Boris) then I do have some sympathy for wanting to reduce the risk of that happening again.
I am not saying there are not benefits of having a cabinet that is more cohesive by blocking a large wing of the party. I would recommend such an approach to Starmer for example. But lets not pretend that by blocking a large proportion of the candidates you dont end up with a less talented cabinet. It is just simple maths that selecting from a subset of the party will give less talent - accepting it may be more of a team working together so talent is not the only consideration.
Current one is full of nonentities, useless t**ts and servile lickspittles.
'Mornin' all! Sounds like 'You can't possibly have achieved an A; your school has never had a pupil with one before.' Hmmm.
The primary school my younger son attended had, his year, three boys who were each capable of an 11+ 'pass' in the opinion of the experienced final year teacher. However, the rules said that only two could. On exam day my son had a cold. Result.... 6-7 years later he said that 'couldn't possibly have been 'that good' he'd failed his 11+, hadn't he?
One thing that might happen as a result of this is that there is finally a very public debate about the way exams happen and why they are producing such inferior results for the poorest, who arguably stand to benefit the most from getting a good education.
Obviously, there are a number of reasons, most of which have nothing to do with the exams themselves. But if it sparks a debate about class sizes and forces the government to lower them, and leads to an understanding that postcodes should be less important than talent in any system, as horrendous as this is going to be over the next three months at least some good will come of it.
It should also spark a debate about the use of algorithms to make decisions about people’s lives. Why should we have any confidence in them, in who determines them, who writes them?
'Mornin' all! Sounds like 'You can't possibly have achieved an A; your school has never had a pupil with one before.' Hmmm.
The primary school my younger son attended had, his year, three boys who were each capable of an 11+ 'pass' in the opinion of the experienced final year teacher. However, the rules said that only two could. On exam day my son had a cold. Result.... 6-7 years later he said that 'couldn't possibly have been 'that good' he'd failed his 11+, hadn't he?
One thing that might happen as a result of this is that there is finally a very public debate about the way exams happen and why they are producing such inferior results for the poorest, who arguably stand to benefit the most from getting a good education.
Obviously, there are a number of reasons, most of which have nothing to do with the exams themselves. But if it sparks a debate about class sizes and forces the government to lower them, and leads to an understanding that postcodes should be less important than talent in any system, as horrendous as this is going to be over the next three months at least some good will come of it.
It should also spark a debate about the use of algorithms to make decisions about people’s lives. Why should we have any confidence in them, in who determines them, who writes them?
Exactly , look at the crap one they used to predict the virus , made up by some halfwit based on flu from eons ago. Supposed to be clever , you could not make it up , they are a bunch of overpaid , lying , useless donkeys.
There really is only one solution for these boats. We need to eliminate the pull factor. If people wish to seek asylum in the UK, our processing centres should be in Africa and probably India or similar. People would apply there. Easier for genuine seekers of asylum to get there.
I've had a similar idea that over-crowding in British prisons should be solved by building prisons in Africa and shipping the criminals out there.
Would also be a boost to the local economies and so could be done via the the foreign aid budget.
Vile.
Rather a racist sentiment CHB?
I've recommended prisons in Sub-sarahan Africa here for ages, great to see others arriving at a similar conclusion. I'd only put violent criminals serving long sentences in them, because there wouldn't be any point shipping someone out for 30 days.
Transportation? Tried that with N America and later Australia and look how that turned out!
Don't fancy get thumped at cricket by the likes of Gabon in 50 years.
A Gabon team of sufficient skill to thump Scotland, but unable to beat England is the ideal outcome.
(I'd love to see more strong cricketing nations)
Scotland beat England in their last ODI in case you have forgotten.
I had forgotten. (The sort of thing one tries to do)
As with the soon-to-be-mighty Gabon I like that some of the lesser cricketing nations have improved so much.
Scott will condemn Boris for doing the same things he cheered Cameron for.
Cameron didn't denude the party of all talent to shore up his position, and he sacked his SPAD
I condemn BoZo for the things he does.
There is no comparison.
What talent ? Sajid Javid ?
Now lets compare the 'talent' in Cameron's government - Fox, Grayling, IDS, Lansley, Letwin, Osborne, Warsi.
You condemn Boris because you've chosen a different side just as you cheered Cameron because you chose his side.
So you cheered Cameron for the same things you condemn Boris for.
Javid, Hunt, Ellwood, Greg Clark, not to mention the expelled Clarke, Stewart, Hammond, Gauke, Greening would all have been in the top third performers in the current cabinet. No doubt it will be pointed out they are nearly all remainers, but thats the point, if you exclude a large part of the party you end up with less talent.
Hunt was offered a cabinet job but declined.
Javid is a loss but given what has happened its been vital that the Downing Street neighbours are closely aligned.
Ken Clarke and others had decided to retire.
So who does that leave ? Ellwood and Greg Clarke. I can't even remember what jobs they've had which shows how little impression they've made one way or another.
In fact how many of your list have had impressive cabinet careers ? Hunt and Ken Clarke. The rest are 6/10 people at best.
As to being Remainers given how the 2017-19 governments were undermined by defections and resignations (and that includes Boris) then I do have some sympathy for wanting to reduce the risk of that happening again.
I am not saying there are not benefits of having a cabinet that is more cohesive by blocking a large wing of the party. I would recommend such an approach to Starmer for example. But lets not pretend that by blocking a large proportion of the candidates you dont end up with a less talented cabinet. It is just simple maths that selecting from a subset of the party will give less talent - accepting it may be more of a team working together so talent is not the only consideration.
Current one is full of nonentities, useless t**ts and servile lickspittles.
Might I ask Malcolm, which recent cabinet you consider to have attained such heights? Or should that be depths?
'Mornin' all! Sounds like 'You can't possibly have achieved an A; your school has never had a pupil with one before.' Hmmm.
The primary school my younger son attended had, his year, three boys who were each capable of an 11+ 'pass' in the opinion of the experienced final year teacher. However, the rules said that only two could. On exam day my son had a cold. Result.... 6-7 years later he said that 'couldn't possibly have been 'that good' he'd failed his 11+, hadn't he?
One thing that might happen as a result of this is that there is finally a very public debate about the way exams happen and why they are producing such inferior results for the poorest, who arguably stand to benefit the most from getting a good education.
Obviously, there are a number of reasons, most of which have nothing to do with the exams themselves. But if it sparks a debate about class sizes and forces the government to lower them, and leads to an understanding that postcodes should be less important than talent in any system, as horrendous as this is going to be over the next three months at least some good will come of it.
It should also spark a debate about the use of algorithms to make decisions about people’s lives. Why should we have any confidence in them, in who determines them, who writes them?
My Medical School closes the feedback loop by looking at post entry performance, then goes back to analyse the multiple mini interviews, A levels, UCAS form etc to look at predictive ability.
As a result of this process we have significantly altered selection process. We prefer post A level entrants, ignore UCAS personal statements, require A at A level Chemistry, but are more generous with other A levels etc. Boys are clearly socially less developed than girls at age 18, so we put in a critical analysis paper in place of one of the communication stations, as males on the course outperformed their communications interview etc etc.
I don't think many courses, or professions for that matter, close the feedback loop so completely.
Carl Heneghan (Oxford Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine) recently tweeted to say that on Spanish evidence the case fatality rate could be nearer 0.1% than 0.2%. Why lock people up for a CFR of 0.1-0.2%?
The 1957-58 flu epidemic had a CFR of 0.6-0.7%. There were serious flu epidemics in 1968-69, 1975-76, 2008-09, 2017-18.
We can't deal with viruses by locking up the healthy.
The government needs to open the schools and insist on back to school in September.
I remember endlessly hearing Westminster journalists stating what a wonderful bunch of MP's the new 2010 intake were compared to previous elections both Labour and Tory.None of the Labour ones have really made a mark. Of the current Tory Cabinet there is Raab,Patel,Truss,Hancock and Wilkinson and attending Cabinet Barclay,Mordaunt and Rees-Moog. Ex ministers include Karen Bradley,Greg Clarke,Leadsom,Javid and Mcvey. May have missed some out. Whilst some have been ok none of them have established themselves as 'top class talents' whilst Bradley,Hancock,Leadsom and Wilkinson are competing with Grayling for worst Tory Cabinet minister of modern times.
'Mornin' all! Sounds like 'You can't possibly have achieved an A; your school has never had a pupil with one before.' Hmmm.
The primary school my younger son attended had, his year, three boys who were each capable of an 11+ 'pass' in the opinion of the experienced final year teacher. However, the rules said that only two could. On exam day my son had a cold. Result.... 6-7 years later he said that 'couldn't possibly have been 'that good' he'd failed his 11+, hadn't he?
One thing that might happen as a result of this is that there is finally a very public debate about the way exams happen and why they are producing such inferior results for the poorest, who arguably stand to benefit the most from getting a good education.
Obviously, there are a number of reasons, most of which have nothing to do with the exams themselves. But if it sparks a debate about class sizes and forces the government to lower them, and leads to an understanding that postcodes should be less important than talent in any system, as horrendous as this is going to be over the next three months at least some good will come of it.
It should also spark a debate about the use of algorithms to make decisions about people’s lives. Why should we have any confidence in them, in who determines them, who writes them?
My Medical School closes the feedback loop by looking at post entry performance, then goes back to analyse the multiple mini interviews, A levels, UCAS form etc to look at predictive ability.
As a result of this process we have significantly altered selection process. We prefer post A level entrants, ignore UCAS personal statements, require A at A level Chemistry, but are more generous with other A levels etc. Boys are clearly socially less developed than girls at age 18, so we put in a critical analysis paper in place of one of the communication stations, as males on the course outperformed their communications interview etc etc.
I don't think many courses, or professions for that matter, close the feedback loop so completely.
I remember endlessly hearing Westminster journalists stating what a wonderful bunch of MP's the new 2010 intake were compared to previous elections both Labour and Tory.None of the Labour ones have really made a mark. Of the current Tory Cabinet there is Raab,Patel,Truss,Hancock and Wilkinson and attending Cabinet Barclay,Mordaunt and Rees-Moog. Ex ministers include Karen Bradley,Greg Clarke,Leadsom,Javid and Mcvey. May have missed some out. Whilst some have been ok none of them have established themselves as 'top class talents' whilst Bradley,Hancock,Leadsom and Wilkinson are competing with Grayling for worst Tory Cabinet minister of modern times.
Wilkinson stands out in that list. Must be a non-entity.
Scott will condemn Boris for doing the same things he cheered Cameron for.
Cameron didn't denude the party of all talent to shore up his position, and he sacked his SPAD
I condemn BoZo for the things he does.
There is no comparison.
What talent ? Sajid Javid ?
Now lets compare the 'talent' in Cameron's government - Fox, Grayling, IDS, Lansley, Letwin, Osborne, Warsi.
You condemn Boris because you've chosen a different side just as you cheered Cameron because you chose his side.
So you cheered Cameron for the same things you condemn Boris for.
Javid, Hunt, Ellwood, Greg Clark, not to mention the expelled Clarke, Stewart, Hammond, Gauke, Greening would all have been in the top third performers in the current cabinet. No doubt it will be pointed out they are nearly all remainers, but thats the point, if you exclude a large part of the party you end up with less talent.
Hunt was offered a cabinet job but declined.
Javid is a loss but given what has happened its been vital that the Downing Street neighbours are closely aligned.
Ken Clarke and others had decided to retire.
So who does that leave ? Ellwood and Greg Clarke. I can't even remember what jobs they've had which shows how little impression they've made one way or another.
In fact how many of your list have had impressive cabinet careers ? Hunt and Ken Clarke. The rest are 6/10 people at best.
As to being Remainers given how the 2017-19 governments were undermined by defections and resignations (and that includes Boris) then I do have some sympathy for wanting to reduce the risk of that happening again.
I am not saying there are not benefits of having a cabinet that is more cohesive by blocking a large wing of the party. I would recommend such an approach to Starmer for example. But lets not pretend that by blocking a large proportion of the candidates you dont end up with a less talented cabinet. It is just simple maths that selecting from a subset of the party will give less talent - accepting it may be more of a team working together so talent is not the only consideration.
Current one is full of nonentities, useless t**ts and servile lickspittles.
Might I ask Malcolm, which recent cabinet you consider to have attained such heights? Or should that be depths?
The current bunch which are even worse than the previous bunch, which is hard to believe. A handful of the previous one could have tied their own shoelaces, this lot need Cummings and his minnions to assist. PS: witty reply:) I like it @alterego
I remember endlessly hearing Westminster journalists stating what a wonderful bunch of MP's the new 2010 intake were compared to previous elections both Labour and Tory.None of the Labour ones have really made a mark. Of the current Tory Cabinet there is Raab,Patel,Truss,Hancock and Wilkinson and attending Cabinet Barclay,Mordaunt and Rees-Moog. Ex ministers include Karen Bradley,Greg Clarke,Leadsom,Javid and Mcvey. May have missed some out. Whilst some have been ok none of them have established themselves as 'top class talents' whilst Bradley,Hancock,Leadsom and Wilkinson are competing with Grayling for worst Tory Cabinet minister of modern times.
All of them useless NO Marks, you would not trust to sweep the streets
I remember endlessly hearing Westminster journalists stating what a wonderful bunch of MP's the new 2010 intake were compared to previous elections both Labour and Tory.None of the Labour ones have really made a mark. Of the current Tory Cabinet there is Raab,Patel,Truss,Hancock and Wilkinson and attending Cabinet Barclay,Mordaunt and Rees-Moog. Ex ministers include Karen Bradley,Greg Clarke,Leadsom,Javid and Mcvey. May have missed some out. Whilst some have been ok none of them have established themselves as 'top class talents' whilst Bradley,Hancock,Leadsom and Wilkinson are competing with Grayling for worst Tory Cabinet minister of modern times.
By the nature of the swing in 2010 there was a much bigger fresh intake for Tories than other parties, as even with more than average retirements, a winning party becomes younger.
The winnowing of unfavoured Tory Remainers and Labour centrist MPs in 2019 will have brought in fresh faces to both. Younger Brexiteers for the Tories, more Socialist for Labour. The latter is why I don't think Starmer will shift too Centrist, and why Davey and his Orange Bookers have an opening.
There is a theme running through today's thread that perhaps does give an opening to Labour. It's one rule for us, and another for them.
Want a lucrative government contract? Lloyd George knew my father. Peerage? Ditto. And now A-levels are the corollary: play by the rules, and get screwed.
I remember endlessly hearing Westminster journalists stating what a wonderful bunch of MP's the new 2010 intake were compared to previous elections both Labour and Tory.None of the Labour ones have really made a mark. Of the current Tory Cabinet there is Raab,Patel,Truss,Hancock and Wilkinson and attending Cabinet Barclay,Mordaunt and Rees-Moog. Ex ministers include Karen Bradley,Greg Clarke,Leadsom,Javid and Mcvey. May have missed some out. Whilst some have been ok none of them have established themselves as 'top class talents' whilst Bradley,Hancock,Leadsom and Wilkinson are competing with Grayling for worst Tory Cabinet minister of modern times.
Wilkinson stands out in that list. Must be a non-entity.
Think they are much of a mushness, hard to pick who is the worst of the bunch.
Scott will condemn Boris for doing the same things he cheered Cameron for.
Cameron didn't denude the party of all talent to shore up his position, and he sacked his SPAD
I condemn BoZo for the things he does.
There is no comparison.
What talent ? Sajid Javid ?
Now lets compare the 'talent' in Cameron's government - Fox, Grayling, IDS, Lansley, Letwin, Osborne, Warsi.
You condemn Boris because you've chosen a different side just as you cheered Cameron because you chose his side.
So you cheered Cameron for the same things you condemn Boris for.
Javid, Hunt, Ellwood, Greg Clark, not to mention the expelled Clarke, Stewart, Hammond, Gauke, Greening would all have been in the top third performers in the current cabinet. No doubt it will be pointed out they are nearly all remainers, but thats the point, if you exclude a large part of the party you end up with less talent.
Hunt was offered a cabinet job but declined.
Javid is a loss but given what has happened its been vital that the Downing Street neighbours are closely aligned.
Ken Clarke and others had decided to retire.
So who does that leave ? Ellwood and Greg Clarke. I can't even remember what jobs they've had which shows how little impression they've made one way or another.
In fact how many of your list have had impressive cabinet careers ? Hunt and Ken Clarke. The rest are 6/10 people at best.
As to being Remainers given how the 2017-19 governments were undermined by defections and resignations (and that includes Boris) then I do have some sympathy for wanting to reduce the risk of that happening again.
I am not saying there are not benefits of having a cabinet that is more cohesive by blocking a large wing of the party. I would recommend such an approach to Starmer for example. But lets not pretend that by blocking a large proportion of the candidates you dont end up with a less talented cabinet. It is just simple maths that selecting from a subset of the party will give less talent - accepting it may be more of a team working together so talent is not the only consideration.
Current one is full of nonentities, useless t**ts and servile lickspittles.
Might I ask Malcolm, which recent cabinet you consider to have attained such heights? Or should that be depths?
The current bunch which are even worse than the previous bunch, which is hard to believe. A handful of the previous one could have tied their own shoelaces, this lot need Cummings and his minnions to assist. PS: witty reply:) I like it @alterego
There is a theme running through today's thread that perhaps does give an opening to Labour. It's one rule for us, and another for them.
Want a lucrative government contract? Lloyd George knew my father. Peerage? Ditto. And now A-levels are the corollary: play by the rules, and get screwed.
But they are giving out blue passports and constant flyovers by spitfires, world beating everything etc. It will take the dense sheeple a bit longer to catch on , maybe when they are on job seekers or IDS's UC it will sink in.
I remember endlessly hearing Westminster journalists stating what a wonderful bunch of MP's the new 2010 intake were compared to previous elections both Labour and Tory.None of the Labour ones have really made a mark. Of the current Tory Cabinet there is Raab,Patel,Truss,Hancock and Wilkinson and attending Cabinet Barclay,Mordaunt and Rees-Moog. Ex ministers include Karen Bradley,Greg Clarke,Leadsom,Javid and Mcvey. May have missed some out. Whilst some have been ok none of them have established themselves as 'top class talents' whilst Bradley,Hancock,Leadsom and Wilkinson are competing with Grayling for worst Tory Cabinet minister of modern times.
Wilkinson stands out in that list. Must be a non-entity.
Think they are much of a mushness, hard to pick who is the worst of the bunch.
Is there such a person as "Wilkinson" in the govt?
Scott will condemn Boris for doing the same things he cheered Cameron for.
Cameron didn't denude the party of all talent to shore up his position, and he sacked his SPAD
I condemn BoZo for the things he does.
There is no comparison.
What talent ? Sajid Javid ?
Now lets compare the 'talent' in Cameron's government - Fox, Grayling, IDS, Lansley, Letwin, Osborne, Warsi.
You condemn Boris because you've chosen a different side just as you cheered Cameron because you chose his side.
So you cheered Cameron for the same things you condemn Boris for.
Javid, Hunt, Ellwood, Greg Clark, not to mention the expelled Clarke, Stewart, Hammond, Gauke, Greening would all have been in the top third performers in the current cabinet. No doubt it will be pointed out they are nearly all remainers, but thats the point, if you exclude a large part of the party you end up with less talent.
Hunt was offered a cabinet job but declined.
Javid is a loss but given what has happened its been vital that the Downing Street neighbours are closely aligned.
Ken Clarke and others had decided to retire.
So who does that leave ? Ellwood and Greg Clarke. I can't even remember what jobs they've had which shows how little impression they've made one way or another.
In fact how many of your list have had impressive cabinet careers ? Hunt and Ken Clarke. The rest are 6/10 people at best.
As to being Remainers given how the 2017-19 governments were undermined by defections and resignations (and that includes Boris) then I do have some sympathy for wanting to reduce the risk of that happening again.
I am not saying there are not benefits of having a cabinet that is more cohesive by blocking a large wing of the party. I would recommend such an approach to Starmer for example. But lets not pretend that by blocking a large proportion of the candidates you dont end up with a less talented cabinet. It is just simple maths that selecting from a subset of the party will give less talent - accepting it may be more of a team working together so talent is not the only consideration.
Current one is full of nonentities, useless t**ts and servile lickspittles.
Might I ask Malcolm, which recent cabinet you consider to have attained such heights? Or should that be depths?
The current bunch which are even worse than the previous bunch, which is hard to believe. A handful of the previous one could have tied their own shoelaces, this lot need Cummings and his minnions to assist. PS: witty reply:) I like it @alterego
I remember endlessly hearing Westminster journalists stating what a wonderful bunch of MP's the new 2010 intake were compared to previous elections both Labour and Tory.None of the Labour ones have really made a mark. Of the current Tory Cabinet there is Raab,Patel,Truss,Hancock and Wilkinson and attending Cabinet Barclay,Mordaunt and Rees-Moog. Ex ministers include Karen Bradley,Greg Clarke,Leadsom,Javid and Mcvey. May have missed some out. Whilst some have been ok none of them have established themselves as 'top class talents' whilst Bradley,Hancock,Leadsom and Wilkinson are competing with Grayling for worst Tory Cabinet minister of modern times.
Wilkinson stands out in that list. Must be a non-entity.
Think they are much of a mushness, hard to pick who is the worst of the bunch.
Is there such a person as "Wilkinson" in the govt?
Scott will condemn Boris for doing the same things he cheered Cameron for.
Cameron didn't denude the party of all talent to shore up his position, and he sacked his SPAD
I condemn BoZo for the things he does.
There is no comparison.
What talent ? Sajid Javid ?
Now lets compare the 'talent' in Cameron's government - Fox, Grayling, IDS, Lansley, Letwin, Osborne, Warsi.
You condemn Boris because you've chosen a different side just as you cheered Cameron because you chose his side.
So you cheered Cameron for the same things you condemn Boris for.
Javid, Hunt, Ellwood, Greg Clark, not to mention the expelled Clarke, Stewart, Hammond, Gauke, Greening would all have been in the top third performers in the current cabinet. No doubt it will be pointed out they are nearly all remainers, but thats the point, if you exclude a large part of the party you end up with less talent.
Hunt was offered a cabinet job but declined.
Javid is a loss but given what has happened its been vital that the Downing Street neighbours are closely aligned.
Ken Clarke and others had decided to retire.
So who does that leave ? Ellwood and Greg Clarke. I can't even remember what jobs they've had which shows how little impression they've made one way or another.
In fact how many of your list have had impressive cabinet careers ? Hunt and Ken Clarke. The rest are 6/10 people at best.
As to being Remainers given how the 2017-19 governments were undermined by defections and resignations (and that includes Boris) then I do have some sympathy for wanting to reduce the risk of that happening again.
I am not saying there are not benefits of having a cabinet that is more cohesive by blocking a large wing of the party. I would recommend such an approach to Starmer for example. But lets not pretend that by blocking a large proportion of the candidates you dont end up with a less talented cabinet. It is just simple maths that selecting from a subset of the party will give less talent - accepting it may be more of a team working together so talent is not the only consideration.
Current one is full of nonentities, useless t**ts and servile lickspittles.
Might I ask Malcolm, which recent cabinet you consider to have attained such heights? Or should that be depths?
The current bunch which are even worse than the previous bunch, which is hard to believe. A handful of the previous one could have tied their own shoelaces, this lot need Cummings and his minnions to assist. PS: witty reply:) I like it @alterego
'Mornin' all! Sounds like 'You can't possibly have achieved an A; your school has never had a pupil with one before.' Hmmm.
The primary school my younger son attended had, his year, three boys who were each capable of an 11+ 'pass' in the opinion of the experienced final year teacher. However, the rules said that only two could. On exam day my son had a cold. Result.... 6-7 years later he said that 'couldn't possibly have been 'that good' he'd failed his 11+, hadn't he?
One thing that might happen as a result of this is that there is finally a very public debate about the way exams happen and why they are producing such inferior results for the poorest, who arguably stand to benefit the most from getting a good education.
Obviously, there are a number of reasons, most of which have nothing to do with the exams themselves. But if it sparks a debate about class sizes and forces the government to lower them, and leads to an understanding that postcodes should be less important than talent in any system, as horrendous as this is going to be over the next three months at least some good will come of it.
It should also spark a debate about the use of algorithms to make decisions about people’s lives. Why should we have any confidence in them, in who determines them, who writes them?
My Medical School closes the feedback loop by looking at post entry performance, then goes back to analyse the multiple mini interviews, A levels, UCAS form etc to look at predictive ability.
As a result of this process we have significantly altered selection process. We prefer post A level entrants, ignore UCAS personal statements, require A at A level Chemistry, but are more generous with other A levels etc. Boys are clearly socially less developed than girls at age 18, so we put in a critical analysis paper in place of one of the communication stations, as males on the course outperformed their communications interview etc etc.
I don't think many courses, or professions for that matter, close the feedback loop so completely.
You're definitely the Mary Poppins of medicine.
Yes, I have many talents
I don't think our current clinical students are getting a good Covid-19 experience though. Remote teaching with little practical interaction with the punters is a very inferior way of learning medicine, particularly the soft skills of interpretation. If this carries on for another six months there will be real skills deficits when they qualify.
I remember endlessly hearing Westminster journalists stating what a wonderful bunch of MP's the new 2010 intake were compared to previous elections both Labour and Tory.None of the Labour ones have really made a mark. Of the current Tory Cabinet there is Raab,Patel,Truss,Hancock and Wilkinson and attending Cabinet Barclay,Mordaunt and Rees-Moog. Ex ministers include Karen Bradley,Greg Clarke,Leadsom,Javid and Mcvey. May have missed some out. Whilst some have been ok none of them have established themselves as 'top class talents' whilst Bradley,Hancock,Leadsom and Wilkinson are competing with Grayling for worst Tory Cabinet minister of modern times.
Wilkinson stands out in that list. Must be a non-entity.
Think they are much of a mushness, hard to pick who is the worst of the bunch.
Is there such a person as "Wilkinson" in the govt?
Scott will condemn Boris for doing the same things he cheered Cameron for.
Cameron didn't denude the party of all talent to shore up his position, and he sacked his SPAD
I condemn BoZo for the things he does.
There is no comparison.
What talent ? Sajid Javid ?
Now lets compare the 'talent' in Cameron's government - Fox, Grayling, IDS, Lansley, Letwin, Osborne, Warsi.
You condemn Boris because you've chosen a different side just as you cheered Cameron because you chose his side.
So you cheered Cameron for the same things you condemn Boris for.
Javid, Hunt, Ellwood, Greg Clark, not to mention the expelled Clarke, Stewart, Hammond, Gauke, Greening would all have been in the top third performers in the current cabinet. No doubt it will be pointed out they are nearly all remainers, but thats the point, if you exclude a large part of the party you end up with less talent.
Hunt was offered a cabinet job but declined.
Javid is a loss but given what has happened its been vital that the Downing Street neighbours are closely aligned.
Ken Clarke and others had decided to retire.
So who does that leave ? Ellwood and Greg Clarke. I can't even remember what jobs they've had which shows how little impression they've made one way or another.
In fact how many of your list have had impressive cabinet careers ? Hunt and Ken Clarke. The rest are 6/10 people at best.
As to being Remainers given how the 2017-19 governments were undermined by defections and resignations (and that includes Boris) then I do have some sympathy for wanting to reduce the risk of that happening again.
I am not saying there are not benefits of having a cabinet that is more cohesive by blocking a large wing of the party. I would recommend such an approach to Starmer for example. But lets not pretend that by blocking a large proportion of the candidates you dont end up with a less talented cabinet. It is just simple maths that selecting from a subset of the party will give less talent - accepting it may be more of a team working together so talent is not the only consideration.
Indeed, its a trade-off.
There are some people who should be good to have inside the tent but do you know if they will be pissing inside or outside.
Given the shambles the 2017-2019 governments turned into with their saga of schemings and resignings it was probably inevitable that there would be a backlash and loyalty would receive a high emphasis.
'Mornin' all! Sounds like 'You can't possibly have achieved an A; your school has never had a pupil with one before.' Hmmm.
The primary school my younger son attended had, his year, three boys who were each capable of an 11+ 'pass' in the opinion of the experienced final year teacher. However, the rules said that only two could. On exam day my son had a cold. Result.... 6-7 years later he said that 'couldn't possibly have been 'that good' he'd failed his 11+, hadn't he?
One thing that might happen as a result of this is that there is finally a very public debate about the way exams happen and why they are producing such inferior results for the poorest, who arguably stand to benefit the most from getting a good education.
Obviously, there are a number of reasons, most of which have nothing to do with the exams themselves. But if it sparks a debate about class sizes and forces the government to lower them, and leads to an understanding that postcodes should be less important than talent in any system, as horrendous as this is going to be over the next three months at least some good will come of it.
It should also spark a debate about the use of algorithms to make decisions about people’s lives. Why should we have any confidence in them, in who determines them, who writes them?
My Medical School closes the feedback loop by looking at post entry performance, then goes back to analyse the multiple mini interviews, A levels, UCAS form etc to look at predictive ability.
As a result of this process we have significantly altered selection process. We prefer post A level entrants, ignore UCAS personal statements, require A at A level Chemistry, but are more generous with other A levels etc. Boys are clearly socially less developed than girls at age 18, so we put in a critical analysis paper in place of one of the communication stations, as males on the course outperformed their communications interview etc etc.
I don't think many courses, or professions for that matter, close the feedback loop so completely.
I inter-reacted with doctors all my working life! And now I have to inter-react with them as a patient. Some of them were clearly academically able but incapable of of appreciating any other viewpoint both their own, but it seems to me that some of the newer qualifiers I meet today have significantly better interactive skills than many of their predecessors did.
I remember endlessly hearing Westminster journalists stating what a wonderful bunch of MP's the new 2010 intake were compared to previous elections both Labour and Tory.None of the Labour ones have really made a mark. Of the current Tory Cabinet there is Raab,Patel,Truss,Hancock and Wilkinson and attending Cabinet Barclay,Mordaunt and Rees-Moog. Ex ministers include Karen Bradley,Greg Clarke,Leadsom,Javid and Mcvey. May have missed some out. Whilst some have been ok none of them have established themselves as 'top class talents' whilst Bradley,Hancock,Leadsom and Wilkinson are competing with Grayling for worst Tory Cabinet minister of modern times.
Wilkinson stands out in that list. Must be a non-entity.
Think they are much of a mushness, hard to pick who is the worst of the bunch.
Is there such a person as "Wilkinson" in the govt?
I remember endlessly hearing Westminster journalists stating what a wonderful bunch of MP's the new 2010 intake were compared to previous elections both Labour and Tory.None of the Labour ones have really made a mark. Of the current Tory Cabinet there is Raab,Patel,Truss,Hancock and Wilkinson and attending Cabinet Barclay,Mordaunt and Rees-Moog. Ex ministers include Karen Bradley,Greg Clarke,Leadsom,Javid and Mcvey. May have missed some out. Whilst some have been ok none of them have established themselves as 'top class talents' whilst Bradley,Hancock,Leadsom and Wilkinson are competing with Grayling for worst Tory Cabinet minister of modern times.
Wilkinson stands out in that list. Must be a non-entity.
Think they are much of a mushness, hard to pick who is the worst of the bunch.
Is there such a person as "Wilkinson" in the govt?
Carl Heneghan (Oxford Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine) recently tweeted to say that on Spanish evidence the case fatality rate could be nearer 0.1% than 0.2%. Why lock people up for a CFR of 0.1-0.2%?
The 1957-58 flu epidemic had a CFR of 0.6-0.7%. There were serious flu epidemics in 1968-69, 1975-76, 2008-09, 2017-18.
We can't deal with viruses by locking up the healthy.
If the CFR is 0.1% that implies nearly every one in the UK has already had it: 50,000 is 0.1% of 50,000,000.
I've got to say that one thing i don't find comfortable about the story is the implication that the method of assessment for these exams means that 40% of pupils have actually been harshly treated (and similar with the stated 120,000 in Scotland). Because whilst the entire year group can feel let down by the process, that is not the same as the implication that 40% of the year group have had their life prospects irretreviably damaged.
The hard done by are those (largely individual) cases where an outlier will get grouped with the herd. It must surely be true that without COVID the predicted grades put forward would not have been at the same level. Or teachers are incredibly bad (in general) at predicting grades.
I don't know how sophisticated the "algorithm" used actually is. Maybe it is a lot better than many are given credit for. To the extent that it will give 'accurate' results for the vast majority of cases. But no algorithm can ever account for exceptions. And is always constrained by margin of error.
The single sentence headlines do not help communicate what is clearly a very difficult and complicated issue, no matter how mishandled it might or might not have been.
I remember endlessly hearing Westminster journalists stating what a wonderful bunch of MP's the new 2010 intake were compared to previous elections both Labour and Tory.None of the Labour ones have really made a mark. Of the current Tory Cabinet there is Raab,Patel,Truss,Hancock and Wilkinson and attending Cabinet Barclay,Mordaunt and Rees-Moog. Ex ministers include Karen Bradley,Greg Clarke,Leadsom,Javid and Mcvey. May have missed some out. Whilst some have been ok none of them have established themselves as 'top class talents' whilst Bradley,Hancock,Leadsom and Wilkinson are competing with Grayling for worst Tory Cabinet minister of modern times.
Wilkinson stands out in that list. Must be a non-entity.
Think they are much of a mushness, hard to pick who is the worst of the bunch.
Is there such a person as "Wilkinson" in the govt?
I remember endlessly hearing Westminster journalists stating what a wonderful bunch of MP's the new 2010 intake were compared to previous elections both Labour and Tory.None of the Labour ones have really made a mark. Of the current Tory Cabinet there is Raab,Patel,Truss,Hancock and Wilkinson and attending Cabinet Barclay,Mordaunt and Rees-Moog. Ex ministers include Karen Bradley,Greg Clarke,Leadsom,Javid and Mcvey. May have missed some out. Whilst some have been ok none of them have established themselves as 'top class talents' whilst Bradley,Hancock,Leadsom and Wilkinson are competing with Grayling for worst Tory Cabinet minister of modern times.
Wilkinson stands out in that list. Must be a non-entity.
Think they are much of a mushness, hard to pick who is the worst of the bunch.
Is there such a person as "Wilkinson" in the govt?
I remember endlessly hearing Westminster journalists stating what a wonderful bunch of MP's the new 2010 intake were compared to previous elections both Labour and Tory.None of the Labour ones have really made a mark. Of the current Tory Cabinet there is Raab,Patel,Truss,Hancock and Wilkinson and attending Cabinet Barclay,Mordaunt and Rees-Moog. Ex ministers include Karen Bradley,Greg Clarke,Leadsom,Javid and Mcvey. May have missed some out. Whilst some have been ok none of them have established themselves as 'top class talents' whilst Bradley,Hancock,Leadsom and Wilkinson are competing with Grayling for worst Tory Cabinet minister of modern times.
Wilkinson stands out in that list. Must be a non-entity.
Think they are much of a mushness, hard to pick who is the worst of the bunch.
Is there such a person as "Wilkinson" in the govt?
'Mornin' all! Sounds like 'You can't possibly have achieved an A; your school has never had a pupil with one before.' Hmmm.
The primary school my younger son attended had, his year, three boys who were each capable of an 11+ 'pass' in the opinion of the experienced final year teacher. However, the rules said that only two could. On exam day my son had a cold. Result.... 6-7 years later he said that 'couldn't possibly have been 'that good' he'd failed his 11+, hadn't he?
One thing that might happen as a result of this is that there is finally a very public debate about the way exams happen and why they are producing such inferior results for the poorest, who arguably stand to benefit the most from getting a good education.
Obviously, there are a number of reasons, most of which have nothing to do with the exams themselves. But if it sparks a debate about class sizes and forces the government to lower them, and leads to an understanding that postcodes should be less important than talent in any system, as horrendous as this is going to be over the next three months at least some good will come of it.
It should also spark a debate about the use of algorithms to make decisions about people’s lives. Why should we have any confidence in them, in who determines them, who writes them?
My Medical School closes the feedback loop by looking at post entry performance, then goes back to analyse the multiple mini interviews, A levels, UCAS form etc to look at predictive ability.
As a result of this process we have significantly altered selection process. We prefer post A level entrants, ignore UCAS personal statements, require A at A level Chemistry, but are more generous with other A levels etc. Boys are clearly socially less developed than girls at age 18, so we put in a critical analysis paper in place of one of the communication stations, as males on the course outperformed their communications interview etc etc.
I don't think many courses, or professions for that matter, close the feedback loop so completely.
The entry requirements for teaching Physics don’t tend to go much further than a pulse...
Edit: that is to get onto the PGCE course, not to get a job afterwards.
"to know the effects of keeping schools open during the COVID-19 pandemic, we must study the one place that kept their schools open during the height of the pandemic. That place is Sweden."
I've got to say that one thing i don't find comfortable about the story is the implication that the method of assessment for these exams means that 40% of pupils have actually been harshly treated (and similar with the stated 120,000 in Scotland). Because whilst the entire year group can feel let down by the process, that is not the same as the implication that 40% of the year group have had their life prospects irretreviably damaged.
The hard done by are those (largely individual) cases where an outlier will get grouped with the herd. It must surely be true that without COVID the predicted grades put forward would not have been at the same level. Or teachers are incredibly bad (in general) at predicting grades.
I don't know how sophisticated the "algorithm" used actually is. Maybe it is a lot better than many are given credit for. To the extent that it will give 'accurate' results for the vast majority of cases. But no algorithm can ever account for exceptions. And is always constrained by margin of error.
The single sentence headlines do not help communicate what is clearly a very difficult and complicated issue, no matter how mishandled it might or might not have been.
If the English results are similar to the Scottish then there's going to be way more winners than losers overall.
Will that be unfortunate for many individuals ? Certainly but sadly 'stuff happens'.
And there's no shortage of people losing out because stuff has happened this year.
I remember endlessly hearing Westminster journalists stating what a wonderful bunch of MP's the new 2010 intake were compared to previous elections both Labour and Tory.None of the Labour ones have really made a mark. Of the current Tory Cabinet there is Raab,Patel,Truss,Hancock and Wilkinson and attending Cabinet Barclay,Mordaunt and Rees-Moog. Ex ministers include Karen Bradley,Greg Clarke,Leadsom,Javid and Mcvey. May have missed some out. Whilst some have been ok none of them have established themselves as 'top class talents' whilst Bradley,Hancock,Leadsom and Wilkinson are competing with Grayling for worst Tory Cabinet minister of modern times.
Wilkinson stands out in that list. Must be a non-entity.
Think they are much of a mushness, hard to pick who is the worst of the bunch.
Is there such a person as "Wilkinson" in the govt?
It was a close shave that he gotbin
Razor sharp wit, sir.
I expected to be put to the sword for that
Don't give up the day job just yet , Gillette you know soon
'Mornin' all! Sounds like 'You can't possibly have achieved an A; your school has never had a pupil with one before.' Hmmm.
The primary school my younger son attended had, his year, three boys who were each capable of an 11+ 'pass' in the opinion of the experienced final year teacher. However, the rules said that only two could. On exam day my son had a cold. Result.... 6-7 years later he said that 'couldn't possibly have been 'that good' he'd failed his 11+, hadn't he?
One thing that might happen as a result of this is that there is finally a very public debate about the way exams happen and why they are producing such inferior results for the poorest, who arguably stand to benefit the most from getting a good education.
Obviously, there are a number of reasons, most of which have nothing to do with the exams themselves. But if it sparks a debate about class sizes and forces the government to lower them, and leads to an understanding that postcodes should be less important than talent in any system, as horrendous as this is going to be over the next three months at least some good will come of it.
It should also spark a debate about the use of algorithms to make decisions about people’s lives. Why should we have any confidence in them, in who determines them, who writes them?
My Medical School closes the feedback loop by looking at post entry performance, then goes back to analyse the multiple mini interviews, A levels, UCAS form etc to look at predictive ability.
As a result of this process we have significantly altered selection process. We prefer post A level entrants, ignore UCAS personal statements, require A at A level Chemistry, but are more generous with other A levels etc. Boys are clearly socially less developed than girls at age 18, so we put in a critical analysis paper in place of one of the communication stations, as males on the course outperformed their communications interview etc etc.
I don't think many courses, or professions for that matter, close the feedback loop so completely.
The entry requirements for teaching Physics don’t tend to go much further than a pulse...
Edit: that is to get onto the PGCE course, not to get a job afterwards.
Your uni demanded a pulse?
I didn’t know there were PGCE Physics courses out there that were that choosy.
The coverage of the prospective A level results 'downgrades' is as always these days alarmist and confusing. With Scrap Junior awaiting her A levels I've been following this v closely!!
The parent quoted in the article with the stats analysis posted this on the student room website in the Cambridge offer holders section and Peterhouse Admissions responded on the thread to reassure. Basically the Unis and colleges are going to look at schools context for students who miss their grades and with international students down, lots of flexibility is expected as home students are needed - a max 5% overallotment being allowed to stop the better Unis hoovering up students to try and meet some of their funding shortfall.
Secondly the school predictions 'unadjusted' would have seen an unrealistic surge in results compared to last year - so the headlines would otherwise be set to say these set of results were too easy / not reliable or credible.
Headlines like this are causing huge concern to students awaiting their results with even more concern this year due to the greater opaqueness of what they might get - and then what on earth type of experience they will get when the do get to Uni in Autumn.
"to know the effects of keeping schools open during the COVID-19 pandemic, we must study the one place that kept their schools open during the height of the pandemic. That place is Sweden."
says Harvard expert.
More on lockdownsceptics.
One of the largest studies in the world on coronavirus in schools was carried out in 100 institutions in the UK. According to Professor Russel Viner, President of the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health and a member of SAGE. “A new study that has been done in UK schools confirms there is very little evidence that the virus is transmitted in schools,” Professor Viner tells the Sunday Times. “This is the some of the largest data you will find on schools anywhere. Britain has done very well in terms of thinking of collecting data in schools.” The study, done by Public Health England, is due to be published later this year.
One rule for us and one rule for them is the only thing that has so far damaged the Tory polling lead.
It is by far the most potent attack there is on Boris Johnson, who tried his best to hide it during the GE.
Labour needs to go in hard.
And everybody else....
The Conservatives´key vulnerable points, as identified by David Herdson - overall incompetence and the one rule for them and another rule for us - are points that are open to attack from all the opposition parties. I expect the Lib Dems at least to be going full out on these once they have their new leader in place at the end of this month.
'Mornin' all! Sounds like 'You can't possibly have achieved an A; your school has never had a pupil with one before.' Hmmm.
The primary school my younger son attended had, his year, three boys who were each capable of an 11+ 'pass' in the opinion of the experienced final year teacher. However, the rules said that only two could. On exam day my son had a cold. Result.... 6-7 years later he said that 'couldn't possibly have been 'that good' he'd failed his 11+, hadn't he?
One thing that might happen as a result of this is that there is finally a very public debate about the way exams happen and why they are producing such inferior results for the poorest, who arguably stand to benefit the most from getting a good education.
Obviously, there are a number of reasons, most of which have nothing to do with the exams themselves. But if it sparks a debate about class sizes and forces the government to lower them, and leads to an understanding that postcodes should be less important than talent in any system, as horrendous as this is going to be over the next three months at least some good will come of it.
It should also spark a debate about the use of algorithms to make decisions about people’s lives. Why should we have any confidence in them, in who determines them, who writes them?
My Medical School closes the feedback loop by looking at post entry performance, then goes back to analyse the multiple mini interviews, A levels, UCAS form etc to look at predictive ability.
As a result of this process we have significantly altered selection process. We prefer post A level entrants, ignore UCAS personal statements, require A at A level Chemistry, but are more generous with other A levels etc. Boys are clearly socially less developed than girls at age 18, so we put in a critical analysis paper in place of one of the communication stations, as males on the course outperformed their communications interview etc etc.
I don't think many courses, or professions for that matter, close the feedback loop so completely.
I inter-reacted with doctors all my working life! And now I have to inter-react with them as a patient. Some of them were clearly academically able but incapable of of appreciating any other viewpoint both their own, but it seems to me that some of the newer qualifiers I meet today have significantly better interactive skills than many of their predecessors did.
Communication skills are a major part of teaching now, they were more or less assumed to be innate when I trained.
For all those PBers who say Cummings and his rule breaking will be forgotten:
"And Covid Britain now has its own drumbeat.One of them is called Dominic Cummings. It was especially noticeable in the North East, where his notorious dash to Barnard Castle occurred. But the 'Cummings Effect' is real.
His name was raised several times with me unprompted. And rightly or wrongly, he has damaged Boris and the Government."
He didn't damage Johnson. Johnson damaged himself by his craven handling of the matter. It revealed to all with faculties and an interest that at this time of great national crisis we have as our PM an abjectly weak and vacuous individual whose dependency on his chief SPAD for drive and direction is such that he cannot face life in office without him.
'Mornin' all! Sounds like 'You can't possibly have achieved an A; your school has never had a pupil with one before.' Hmmm.
The primary school my younger son attended had, his year, three boys who were each capable of an 11+ 'pass' in the opinion of the experienced final year teacher. However, the rules said that only two could. On exam day my son had a cold. Result.... 6-7 years later he said that 'couldn't possibly have been 'that good' he'd failed his 11+, hadn't he?
One thing that might happen as a result of this is that there is finally a very public debate about the way exams happen and why they are producing such inferior results for the poorest, who arguably stand to benefit the most from getting a good education.
Obviously, there are a number of reasons, most of which have nothing to do with the exams themselves. But if it sparks a debate about class sizes and forces the government to lower them, and leads to an understanding that postcodes should be less important than talent in any system, as horrendous as this is going to be over the next three months at least some good will come of it.
It should also spark a debate about the use of algorithms to make decisions about people’s lives. Why should we have any confidence in them, in who determines them, who writes them?
My Medical School closes the feedback loop by looking at post entry performance, then goes back to analyse the multiple mini interviews, A levels, UCAS form etc to look at predictive ability.
As a result of this process we have significantly altered selection process. We prefer post A level entrants, ignore UCAS personal statements, require A at A level Chemistry, but are more generous with other A levels etc. Boys are clearly socially less developed than girls at age 18, so we put in a critical analysis paper in place of one of the communication stations, as males on the course outperformed their communications interview etc etc.
I don't think many courses, or professions for that matter, close the feedback loop so completely.
The entry requirements for teaching Physics don’t tend to go much further than a pulse...
Edit: that is to get onto the PGCE course, not to get a job afterwards.
Your uni demanded a pulse?
I didn’t know there were PGCE Physics courses out there that were that choosy.
One rule for us and one rule for them is the only thing that has so far damaged the Tory polling lead.
It is by far the most potent attack there is on Boris Johnson, who tried his best to hide it during the GE.
Labour needs to go in hard.
And everybody else....
The Conservatives´key vulnerable points, as identified by David Herdson - overall incompetence and the one rule for them and another rule for us - are points that are open to attack from all the opposition parties. I expect the Lib Dems at least to be going full out on these once they have their new leader in place at the end of this month.
Time for some united opposition, Ashdown and Blair 2.0 please
Peterhouse admissions posts on these concerns from a week ago on TSR fyi:
"Thank you for this data - you have clearly put a lot of work in! In response to your questions, we would not ask the school for the predictions, but we absolutely will be looking at the school's historical data (both the GCSE scores of this cohort and the A level scores of previous cohorts) to look at whether the standardised grade we receive is reliable, exactly as you suggest."
"When we say 'be flexible' we mean that we would relax the conditions of an offer, so accept a student whose grades fall slightly short of what we ask for. This is normal: we do it every year. What is different about this year is that we will be looking in more detail at the performance of the school as a whole and the performance of previous cohorts against whom applicants have been standardised (and this cohort at GCSE, if applicable) when making this decision."
F1: backed Kvyat for points at 6.5 (7 with boost). He was into the points last weekend and only failed to score due to a reliability failure. This time he was fast enough to be top 10 but got a time eliminated.
This looks like a pretty sound value bet Morris, even better with BETFRED at 7.5, compared with the likes of bet365 and SkyBet, etc who offer only 5.0 Thanks for the tip.
BTW does anyone know why Ladbrokes no longer features on the Oddschecker comparison site, which considerably weakens its value? Possibly has something to do with the fact that Oddschecker is or was owned by the same company as SkyBet?
The coverage of the prospective A level results 'downgrades' is as always these days alarmist and confusing. With Scrap Junior awaiting her A levels I've been following this v closely!!
The parent quoted in the article with the stats analysis posted this on the student room website in the Cambridge offer holders section and Peterhouse Admissions responded on the thread to reassure. Basically the Unis and colleges are going to look at schools context for students who miss their grades and with international students down, lots of flexibility is expected as home students are needed - a max 5% overallotment being allowed to stop the better Unis hoovering up students to try and meet some of their funding shortfall.
Secondly the school predictions 'unadjusted' would have seen an unrealistic surge in results compared to last year - so the headlines would otherwise be set to say these set of results were too easy / not reliable or credible.
Headlines like this are causing huge concern to students awaiting their results with even more concern this year due to the greater opaqueness of what they might get - and then what on earth type of experience they will get when the do get to Uni in Autumn.
Scotland managed to hit the sweet-spot of both an unrealistic increase in results compared to previous years and the complaints from those who wanted better grades.
'Mornin' all! Sounds like 'You can't possibly have achieved an A; your school has never had a pupil with one before.' Hmmm.
The primary school my younger son attended had, his year, three boys who were each capable of an 11+ 'pass' in the opinion of the experienced final year teacher. However, the rules said that only two could. On exam day my son had a cold. Result.... 6-7 years later he said that 'couldn't possibly have been 'that good' he'd failed his 11+, hadn't he?
One thing that might happen as a result of this is that there is finally a very public debate about the way exams happen and why they are producing such inferior results for the poorest, who arguably stand to benefit the most from getting a good education.
Obviously, there are a number of reasons, most of which have nothing to do with the exams themselves. But if it sparks a debate about class sizes and forces the government to lower them, and leads to an understanding that postcodes should be less important than talent in any system, as horrendous as this is going to be over the next three months at least some good will come of it.
It should also spark a debate about the use of algorithms to make decisions about people’s lives. Why should we have any confidence in them, in who determines them, who writes them?
My Medical School closes the feedback loop by looking at post entry performance, then goes back to analyse the multiple mini interviews, A levels, UCAS form etc to look at predictive ability.
As a result of this process we have significantly altered selection process. We prefer post A level entrants, ignore UCAS personal statements, require A at A level Chemistry, but are more generous with other A levels etc. Boys are clearly socially less developed than girls at age 18, so we put in a critical analysis paper in place of one of the communication stations, as males on the course outperformed their communications interview etc etc.
I don't think many courses, or professions for that matter, close the feedback loop so completely.
I inter-reacted with doctors all my working life! And now I have to inter-react with them as a patient. Some of them were clearly academically able but incapable of of appreciating any other viewpoint both their own, but it seems to me that some of the newer qualifiers I meet today have significantly better interactive skills than many of their predecessors did.
Communication skills are a major part of teaching now, they were more or less assumed to be innate when I trained.
To be fair, they were for pharmacists as well for a while, although at one time earlier they were important. However, after my last (I think) GP appointment I complimented the GP on her communication skills and was a) thanked, b) told that she had had some training and c) that a professor at whatever prestigious London teaching hospital she attended had told her fairly early on that her manner and apparent communication skills would make her an excellent GP. One of her predecessors in the practice, now retired was a very pleasant person to interview when I called on her on behalf of the PCT but was considerably less 'sympathetic' with her patients.
"to know the effects of keeping schools open during the COVID-19 pandemic, we must study the one place that kept their schools open during the height of the pandemic. That place is Sweden."
says Harvard expert.
More on lockdownsceptics.
One of the largest studies in the world on coronavirus in schools was carried out in 100 institutions in the UK. According to Professor Russel Viner, President of the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health and a member of SAGE. “A new study that has been done in UK schools confirms there is very little evidence that the virus is transmitted in schools,” Professor Viner tells the Sunday Times. “This is the some of the largest data you will find on schools anywhere. Britain has done very well in terms of thinking of collecting data in schools.” The study, done by Public Health England, is due to be published later this year.
On the basis of this, it's a bit of a mystery why there is any serious question about schools opening, or talk of "trading off pubs vs schools" whatsoever!
I wonder if one reason why children don't seem to pass the virus on to adults very much is a rather basic one. If transmission is mainly through droplets (either through breathing/coughing etc or "hanging around in the air) then maybe children don't transmit to adults because they, er, generally have their mouths at different heights to those occupied by adults!!!
Peterhouse admissions posts on these concerns from a week ago on TSR fyi:
"Thank you for this data - you have clearly put a lot of work in! In response to your questions, we would not ask the school for the predictions, but we absolutely will be looking at the school's historical data (both the GCSE scores of this cohort and the A level scores of previous cohorts) to look at whether the standardised grade we receive is reliable, exactly as you suggest."
"When we say 'be flexible' we mean that we would relax the conditions of an offer, so accept a student whose grades fall slightly short of what we ask for. This is normal: we do it every year. What is different about this year is that we will be looking in more detail at the performance of the school as a whole and the performance of previous cohorts against whom applicants have been standardised (and this cohort at GCSE, if applicable) when making this decision."
Now that is an interesting admission from Peterhouse, as normally the position of both Oxford and Cambridge is they *don’t* accept students if they don’t get the grades.
I always thought that was probably not true in practice, but it’s useful to have it confirmed.
Good luck to Scrapheap Jr. She’s been shafted often enough by exams as we’ve discussed before. Really hope she gets into Peterhouse.
Yet we are told that the system will favour private schools.
It doesn't matter how high the grades are people will whine.
And you know what the real problem is ? The problem we can do little about.
The world is getting harder and it will care less and less how much whining happens.
I feel like at this point you just post to be contrary
You've taken this long to realise it
I'm a mixture of reasonable moderation and alternative anti-establishment - its the second which gets noticed more than the first.
But I'm right about the world getting harder - I've been asking this question for over a decade:
In a globalised world how do we compete with countries which are as intelligent and educated as we are but who are willing to work harder, for less money and under fewer restrictions ?
That's the question current school leavers will have to find an answer to.
Now if the system is being rigged in favour of public schools, why would they be wanting lawyers?
In light of these stories all schools will want lawyers. It’s just private schools have more discretion over how they spend their money so are able to brief them in advance.
Comments
And then we get stories like this claiming that Spain are intending to implement a "3 phase lockdown", not now but, wait for it... in 6 weeks! Which each phase lasting only a couple of weeks and therefore too soon to assess whether the previous phase has had any affect!
I do not think that many of the posters here have experience of how dire the lower strata of the UK educational system is.
Another friend of my wife's taught (deliberately chose them to work in) in "failing" schools. Mission to help the dis-advantaged etc. She stuck it out for quite a few years, before burning out.
(I'd love to see more strong cricketing nations)
By contrast, the injunction that teachers/schools must rank students in order is more meaningful, because generally they should be rather good at this. Even if over-optimistic, teachers who think all their darlings will get high grades can still distinguish the rank order of students within these grades. So this has the potential to make the hierarchy of students' grades fair and reasonably equitable within each exam centre.
The problem we are then left with is making the grades/ranks equitable between, rather than within, exam centres. This is much harder, but not beyond the wit of Ofqual. Obviously historic results are likely to play a part, but they should not determine outcomes where a centre can make a good case for a significant improvement in the current cohort. Centres should be allowed to make that case. (I doubt, though, that there will be any complaints that no centre makes a case for a significantly weaker current cohort - though there will be some of those, and they are likely to get away with it this year).
It is all very tricky, but not quite as much as some fear. Of course there will be complaints - but there are always many during a normal exam season.
People being advantaged by going to expensive schools is not a new thing, and the university system is surely not so devoid of creativety that they couldn't have come up with additional solutions. Hell, they could have used the 4 months spent doing very little actually speaking to schools and finding out where it might be necessary to make allowances for those to whom they had made offers!
An alternative process would have been:
April - DfE consult with Headteachers on basis by which school will set grades and quality assurance to be built into the process.
May - DfE develop and populate with comparative data the tool specific to each school to enable them to set grades on the agreed basis
June - agree with schools the baseline data in their tool, modifying where agreed that the baseline is inappropriate - otherwise idle school inspectors, regional schools commissioners and local authority school improvement teams could have managed this validation of tools
May thru June - teachers do first pass of assessed grades on agreed basis
July - schools input assessed grades and reviewed with teachers until subject-by-subject the distribution of grades matches the baseline data within agreed tolerances
August - validated grades communicated by schools to UCAS and then pupils on results day and finally to DfE for aggregation. No national comparisons to previous years published this year.
Simples.
In private schools, all four are on board for the work involved. That is a massive advantage.
For the worst performing cohort in the UK (and in other countries), this is not so.
The idea that you could just parachute a bunch of extra super-teachers into the "failing" schools and that will fix the problem... is as misguided as the idea that the homeless just need a place to stay.
To highlight how bad it is this is the history of the twins
2002 born
2013 - left primary school but no formal closure as school closed for last week of school year due to broken water pipe (the main pipe for teesside) ran across the school entrance.
2018 - guinea pigs for new GCSEs
2019 - no AS levels (as part of new exams AS levels are no long supported)
2020 - no A levels
Ignoring the 2013 bit good luck trying to work out how to do any cohort sanity checks as there isn't a valid GCSE baseline to work from
https://twitter.com/ScottGottliebMD/status/1292267946920812544
Had the world invested just a few billion in development in response to the first SARS outbreak, we would be in a massively better place.
https://medium.com/@vernunftundrichtigkeit/coronavirus-why-everyone-was-wrong-fce6db5ba809
Carl Heneghan (Oxford Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine) recently tweeted to say that on Spanish evidence the case fatality rate could be nearer 0.1% than 0.2%. Why lock people up for a CFR of 0.1-0.2%?
The 1957-58 flu epidemic had a CFR of 0.6-0.7%. There were serious flu epidemics in 1968-69, 1975-76, 2008-09, 2017-18.
We can't deal with viruses by locking up the healthy.
"And Covid Britain now has its own drumbeat.One of them is called Dominic Cummings. It was especially noticeable in the North East, where his notorious dash to Barnard Castle occurred. But the 'Cummings Effect' is real.
His name was raised several times with me unprompted. And rightly or wrongly, he has damaged Boris and the Government."
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-8608301/DAN-HODGES-new-working-class-voters-getting-schools-vital-Brexit.html
Cummings' name will eventually be beyond mud as every disaster is pointed at him.
https://elitetitles.co.uk/sir_dame.html
How else did he blag it?
As with the soon-to-be-mighty Gabon I like that some of the lesser cricketing nations have improved so much.
As a result of this process we have significantly altered selection process. We prefer post A level entrants, ignore UCAS personal statements, require A at A level Chemistry, but are more generous with other A levels etc. Boys are clearly socially less developed than girls at age 18, so we put in a critical analysis paper in place of one of the communication stations, as males on the course outperformed their communications interview etc etc.
I don't think many courses, or professions for that matter, close the feedback loop so completely.
Of the current Tory Cabinet there is Raab,Patel,Truss,Hancock and Wilkinson
and attending Cabinet Barclay,Mordaunt and Rees-Moog.
Ex ministers include Karen Bradley,Greg Clarke,Leadsom,Javid and Mcvey.
May have missed some out.
Whilst some have been ok none of them have established themselves as 'top class talents' whilst Bradley,Hancock,Leadsom and Wilkinson are competing with Grayling for worst Tory Cabinet minister of modern times.
PS: witty reply:) I like it
@alterego
The winnowing of unfavoured Tory Remainers and Labour centrist MPs in 2019 will have brought in fresh faces to both. Younger Brexiteers for the Tories, more Socialist for Labour. The latter is why I don't think Starmer will shift too Centrist, and why Davey and his Orange Bookers have an opening.
Want a lucrative government contract? Lloyd George knew my father. Peerage? Ditto. And now A-levels are the corollary: play by the rules, and get screwed.
I don't think our current clinical students are getting a good Covid-19 experience though. Remote teaching with little practical interaction with the punters is a very inferior way of learning medicine, particularly the soft skills of interpretation. If this carries on for another six months there will be real skills deficits when they qualify.
There are some people who should be good to have inside the tent but do you know if they will be pissing inside or outside.
Given the shambles the 2017-2019 governments turned into with their saga of schemings and resignings it was probably inevitable that there would be a backlash and loyalty would receive a high emphasis.
It is by far the most potent attack there is on Boris Johnson, who tried his best to hide it during the GE.
Labour needs to go in hard.
The hard done by are those (largely individual) cases where an outlier will get grouped with the herd. It must surely be true that without
COVID the predicted grades put forward would not have been at the same level. Or teachers are incredibly bad (in general) at predicting grades.
I don't know how sophisticated the "algorithm" used actually is. Maybe it is a lot better than many are given credit for. To the extent that it will give 'accurate' results for the vast majority of cases. But no algorithm can ever account for exceptions. And is always constrained by margin of error.
The single sentence headlines do not help communicate what is clearly a very difficult and complicated issue, no matter how mishandled it might or might not have been.
Quick! Dingy in the channel
Edit: that is to get onto the PGCE course, not to get a job afterwards.
says Harvard expert.
More on lockdownsceptics.
Will that be unfortunate for many individuals ? Certainly but sadly 'stuff happens'.
And there's no shortage of people losing out because stuff has happened this year.
Well being awarded a knighthood is a perk of being DPP.
I didn’t know there were PGCE Physics courses out there that were that choosy.
The parent quoted in the article with the stats analysis posted this on the student room website in the Cambridge offer holders section and Peterhouse Admissions responded on the thread to reassure. Basically the Unis and colleges are going to look at schools context for students who miss their grades and with international students down, lots of flexibility is expected as home students are needed - a max 5% overallotment being allowed to stop the better Unis hoovering up students to try and meet some of their funding shortfall.
Secondly the school predictions 'unadjusted' would have seen an unrealistic surge in results compared to last year - so the headlines would otherwise be set to say these set of results were too easy / not reliable or credible.
Headlines like this are causing huge concern to students awaiting their results with even more concern this year due to the greater opaqueness of what they might get - and then what on earth type of experience they will get when the do get to Uni in Autumn.
The Conservatives´key vulnerable points, as identified by David Herdson - overall incompetence and the one rule for them and another rule for us - are points that are open to attack from all the opposition parties. I expect the Lib Dems at least to be going full out on these once they have their new leader in place at the end of this month.
"Thank you for this data - you have clearly put a lot of work in! In response to your questions, we would not ask the school for the predictions, but we absolutely will be looking at the school's historical data (both the GCSE scores of this cohort and the A level scores of previous cohorts) to look at whether the standardised grade we receive is reliable, exactly as you suggest."
"When we say 'be flexible' we mean that we would relax the conditions of an offer, so accept a student whose grades fall slightly short of what we ask for. This is normal: we do it every year. What is different about this year is that we will be looking in more detail at the performance of the school as a whole and the performance of previous cohorts against whom applicants have been standardised (and this cohort at GCSE, if applicable) when making this decision."
It doesn't matter how high the grades are people will whine.
And you know what the real problem is ? The problem we can do little about.
The world is getting harder and it will care less and less how much whining happens.
Thanks for the tip.
BTW does anyone know why Ladbrokes no longer features on the Oddschecker comparison site, which considerably weakens its value?
Possibly has something to do with the fact that Oddschecker is or was owned by the same company as SkyBet?
Legend!
One of her predecessors in the practice, now retired was a very pleasant person to interview when I called on her on behalf of the PCT but was considerably less 'sympathetic' with her patients.
On the basis of this, it's a bit of a mystery why there is any serious question about schools opening, or talk of "trading off pubs vs schools" whatsoever!
I wonder if one reason why children don't seem to pass the virus on to adults very much is a rather basic one. If transmission is mainly through droplets (either through breathing/coughing etc or "hanging around in the air) then maybe children don't transmit to adults because they, er, generally have their mouths at different heights to those occupied by adults!!!
I always thought that was probably not true in practice, but it’s useful to have it confirmed.
Good luck to Scrapheap Jr. She’s been shafted often enough by exams as we’ve discussed before. Really hope she gets into Peterhouse.
I'm a mixture of reasonable moderation and alternative anti-establishment - its the second which gets noticed more than the first.
But I'm right about the world getting harder - I've been asking this question for over a decade:
In a globalised world how do we compete with countries which are as intelligent and educated as we are but who are willing to work harder, for less money and under fewer restrictions ?
That's the question current school leavers will have to find an answer to.