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I know that we're still in the midst of this chaos, but next year is going to be *even worse*. It might be worth thinking about that now.
1. Exams are predicated on the conditions being the same for candidates. 'All things being equal' to isolate pupil ability/understanding.
1. Exams are predicated on the conditions being the same for candidates. 'All things being equal' to isolate pupil ability/understanding.
2. Next year pupils will have missed lots of school, but they will have all missed different bits of the syllabus. This means that the chances of getting 'unlucky' are magnified.
3. Kids will also have missed different amount of school through no fault of their own. Some may have local lockdowns, or have to self-isolate, or their teacher may be off, or year group isolation. Or all of these. Or none.
4. Having to sit an exam if you had all of these happen, which is supposed to assess a sample of 2/3 years of content, vs bunch of kids who didn't have any of these entirely chance disadvantages will make results non-comparable and open to challenge.
5. Thanks to how this year has been handled, teacher assessment is now off the table for next year. We have seen enough examples of schools being 'optimistic' and those who were straight feel like mugs and won't be caught out again.
6. It also looks likely that everyone taking exams next year will also be up against candidates who were given inflated grades. They will legitimately call for their grades to show some sort of inflation so that they are not unfairly disadvantaged.
7. So how will we grade pupils next year? It's worth remembering what a grade is. It is supposed to have a shared meaning, allowing everyone to discriminate between ability/competence within a subject.
8. The validity of the inferences that we make are grounded in how well the exams discriminate based on ability/competence alone. But we've seen that there will be too many other factors influencing differential performance next year.
9. The only other option that we have that may have some validity and reliability, asking teachers to assign a grade that best matches their ability/competence in the subject, will no longer be credible due to the inflation this year which will likely be worse next year.
10. So we may want to start thinking about this now, because next year is now going to be even more challenging. The fallout of this will have real implications for what goes on in schools, which could further harm kids' education.
11. Kids have already missed too much learning, and are now likely to be bombarded with regular 'valid mocks', reducing teaching time further. We need clarity as early as possible to avoid silly practices abounding in an attempt to second guess the tea leaves of 2021 assessment.
