Edexcel has announced it will upload all of its marked A-level exam scripts; are we about to see A grades rise even further?<\/p>\n\n\n
OK, so first you have to know that I am writing this on A-level\nresults day, and whatever I intended to write has just been trumped by\nthe newspapers reporting, not the pass marks, and not the vagaries of\nresults over time, but something I believe to be even more important:\nEdexcel is today uploading all of its marked A-level exam scripts, and\nwill offer free access to the exam scripts so teachers can judge whether\n a pupil or the examiner was at fault before they go through the process\n of challenging the grade awarded.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n
Now that\u2019s a revolution. That\u2019s\n the walls of Jericho coming down, and I feel a little like Joshua,\nbecause once upon a time I took up my pen and scribbled an attack on the\n massive structure of examination boards \u2013 and lo! See how the walls\nhave crumbled!<\/p>\n\n\n
I cannot say this is exactly what I had in mind\nwhen I went into print \u2013 The Times and The Guardian in the late 1990s \u2013\nto ask that candidates should have access to their own papers if they\nfelt their received grade was wrong. As a Head of English and Head of\nSixth Form I had dealt with disappointed girls with grades they couldn\u2019t\n understand \u2013 \u201cBut I was really good on the Shakespeare paper!\u201d \u2013 and if\n we challenged the grade, all too often the exam board merely confirmed\ntheir first decision.<\/p>\n\n\n
And why wouldn\u2019t they? Who could argue with\nthem, in their ivory tower, loftily handing down decisions which would\nchange the recipients\u2019 lives? And getting a reputation for changing\ntheir minds was never going to be a useful marketing development. I\nsuspected that appeals got very short shrift from the Boards, with more\nto gain by holding firm, and little to gain by admitting error.<\/p>\n\n\n
There\n were times when a pupil was convinced she had done better than the\ngrade given but I had my doubts \u2013 was it likely that a student who had\npottered through Sixth Form in a lackadaisical fashion, with lowish\ngrades for homework assignments completed in a week, not in 45 minutes\nunder exam conditions, was it likely that the D grade was wrong and she\nwas actually going to get an A in a re-mark? Maybe not. Next question:\nwould you be the one to tell her that when she\u2019s convinced she was\ninspired on the day and is determined to demand a re-mark? Of course\nnot.<\/p>\n\n\n
But if I could see her actual paper, if she and I could go\nthrough it line by line and see where marks had been won or lost \u2013 now\nyou\u2019re talking. And \u2013 secondarily, but also importantly \u2013 if I could see\n where a candidate had gone wrong, I would be so much better equipped to\n teach next year\u2019s students because I\u2019d seen the examiner\u2019s response to a\n student\u2019s work.<\/p>\n\n\n
\u201cIf A grades go through the roof next year, don\u2019t be surprised.\u201d <\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n
Looking back, I realise I had done a lot to try to get inside an examiner\u2019s head.<\/p>\n\n\n
The\n best possible INSET for anyone teaching English Language and Literature\n was then (and may still be) to become an examiner, but it\u2019s a brutal\nbaptism, especially if you are working full time. I marked A-level\nEnglish Lit several times, O-level Eng Lit, CSE Eng Lang, and GCSE Eng\nLit, all of them \u2013 obviously \u2013 taking over my life for about three\nweeks. OK on maternity leave, hell on earth when back in school and the\npapers waited for my return and occupied every night till the small\nhours. By then, how fair or accurate was my work, and how much oversight\n of my piles of lumpen paper was possible? I was completely\nconscientious, but also (probably) completely exhausted.<\/p>\n\n\n
I\nunderstand that these days the marking process is much more\n\u2018professional\u2019 in the sense of scripts being scanned and marked in\ndaylight, but the requests for re-marks have gone through the roof. In\n2017, there were 369,215 challenges to grades given (The Times, 16\nAugust 2018). Last year\u2019s pilot, offering teachers access to marked\npapers, resulted in 440,000 scripts being downloaded and viewed by\nteachers. Never mind the particular student whose grade you may be\nquerying, I am sure that the teaching of the next cohort of students for\n the next year and the next examinations will have improved.<\/p>\n\n\n
The\nexaminer is no longer a mysterious figure in the shadows, often\nmoonlighting from the day job to eke out a stretched salary. This is\nwhat a student wrote, this is what the examiner thought, this is the\nmark he gave \u2013 now, how do we help our students to better match what the\n examiner on this syllabus with this exam board, wants?<\/p>\n\n\n
Independent\n schools have spent years working for improvements in the standard of\nmarking. The announcement that one of the Boards will upload all of its\nmarked A-level scripts today, results day, is a tribute to their\nefforts, with a nod to the technology which has made it possible \u2013 you\ncan just imagine the flounce, \u2018Upload the lot!\u2019 which is only possible\nbecause the process is well served by computers.<\/p>\n\n\n
At the time I was\n speaking up for access to the papers, it was already happening in \u2013 if I\n remember correctly \u2013 Ireland and Australia. They were leading the way,\nand offering the kind of example which British exam boards could easily\nfollow. But the exam boards here were horrified at the very idea. When I\n was invited to discuss the issue on Newsnight, a top man in the exam\nbusiness came to defend their position. Newsnight! When the invitation \u2013\n OK, the phone call \u2013 came, I was in a car on the Severn Bridge,\nreturning to Wales from a London trip. Could I come back for the\nprogramme? What do you think?<\/p>\n\n\n
\u201cThe marking process is much more \u2018professional\u2019, but the requests for re-marks have gone through the roof.\u201d<\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n
So\n I returned, and we were told to expect a good 10 minutes of airtime.\nAnd then, the news emphasis for the day changed in a heartbeat: the\nMonica Lewinsky story broke, Clinton admitted guilt, my Exam Board\ncolleague and I turned into small fry.<\/p>\n\n\n
\u201cGive back the papers!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n
\u201cNo! It would be the end of civilisation as we know it\u2026 you\u2019ll be sorry!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n
Thank you and goodnight.<\/p>\n\n\n
But\n the gauntlet was down, the natural justice of allowing students sight\nof their completed papers \u2013 their papers, after all \u2013 was recognised and\n the walls were breached. Ironically, a few years later when my own son\nwas awarded a B in one of his A-levels after two years of nothing less\nthan A grades, he asked for a review. And guess what?<\/p>\n\n\n
The exam\nboard admitted they had lost one of his papers, but would now accept his\n mock paper if his school still had it. The school still had the paper,\ndone in exam conditions back in January. He got his A.<\/p>\n\n\n
Today\u2019s\nnews of Edexcel uploading all of its marked A-level exam scripts is\nbilled as a move to help cut the number of schools challenging their\npupils\u2019 grades. I am sure it will work \u2013 fewer challenges, but probably\n a lot of conversations about what examiners really, really want. This\nis precious information, this is INSET.<\/p>\n\n\n
If A grades go through the roof next year, don\u2019t be surprised.<\/p>\n\n\n
This article first appeared in IE-Today<\/a> on 7 October 2018<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Edexcel has announced it will upload all of its marked A-level exam scripts; are we about to see A grades rise even further? OK, so first you have to know that I am writing this on A-level results day, and whatever I intended to write has just been trumped by the newspapers reporting, not the\u2026 Read More »<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[28,79,88,132,219],"class_list":["post-484","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ie-today","tag-a-levels","tag-edexcel","tag-exams","tag-marking","tag-transparency"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/j-moriarty.co.uk\/hilarymoriarty\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/484","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/j-moriarty.co.uk\/hilarymoriarty\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/j-moriarty.co.uk\/hilarymoriarty\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/j-moriarty.co.uk\/hilarymoriarty\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/j-moriarty.co.uk\/hilarymoriarty\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=484"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/j-moriarty.co.uk\/hilarymoriarty\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/484\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/j-moriarty.co.uk\/hilarymoriarty\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=484"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/j-moriarty.co.uk\/hilarymoriarty\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=484"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/j-moriarty.co.uk\/hilarymoriarty\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=484"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}