TPK wrote: » Going back to OP, my daughter was happy with her leaving cert results in 2019, had hoped to study Medicine in NUIG, but came down a few points short in her HPAT exam that year and decided to take a year out to repeat HPAT 2020. She ended up with 728 (combined HPAT & LC) , the 3 previous years were 725, 725, 726 respectively so she was justifiably confident of an offer. Then the calculated grades came into play, we were assured they would rigorously apply the bell-curve from the previous 3 years to ensure fairness. We all know where this went. Points in NUIG med went up to 728 and my daughter lost out to random selection. She has no opportunity to appeal, resit in November or combine points. Points were so badly inflated, all the extra places created were taken up by 2020 candidates, very few trickled down to the intended recipients. This is the case for anybody using points from past LC. While I have sympathy with this years cohort of students, they have an opportunity to get the grades they feel they lost out on by resitting exams in November. This will likely distort next years CAO's and i'll lay odds that 2021 LC class will be in dispute about this imbalance. The students using grades from previous years are the real losers in this debacle and i'd guess most would happily swap places with the 2020 group.
joeguevara wrote: » There was not an error in her process. They simply totted up the marks incorrectly.
Gerry T wrote: » I agree with most of what you say bar that last bit. If a school with a 100 LC students gave out 5h1 in maths and that was the average for the whole country per hundred students then no student was marked down or marked up from a h2. But if you went to a school where 8 students were being given a h1, and deserved it, then 3 of those students were marked down. Again if your school only gave 3h1's then 2 lucky h2 students got marked up. That's my understanding of not introducing a schools past performance into the equation. It's a simplistic view but it does seem to be ringing through when it's disadvantage schools that seem to be raving about this years results and high achieving schools complaining.
St Kilian's is a great example, they teach through German and every year get way above average compared to other schools in higher level German, usually 40- 50% of students get a h1. This would make perfect sense This year those students were marked down and only 14% got a h1. When the Govt said they would take that into account, one week before the results were due out, under Martin's watch this part of the calculation was removed.
Gerry T wrote: » Thats a strawman, you avoiding the point, high achieving schools were brought down, poor achieving schools were brought up. Your latching onto the mocks, where I said 1 student received less than his mocks. You have no idea what the school in quetion did or didn't do in relation to the mocks, whether they bought in papers or wrote their own, whether they marked hard or easy. In this case the school set papers written by the teachers and no leaked before hand. You can't deny that some schools are high achieving yr on yr. That's whats being discussed. I do understand that. A hign achieving school will sit higher on the national average curve, a low achieving school at the far end. I never said if I liked or disliked the man. I said so far I think he's doing a bad job, nothing about him personally. This is not a brexit discussion, but the WA is now front and central and is not completed by any stretch of imagination. Secondly IRL played a key role in negotiating the final parts of the WA, when Johnson visited here the deadlock was broke. But lets not discuss that here.
joeguevara wrote: » Your failing to grasp my crux. They got the grades not from teacher bias who lets face it in grinds schools get the tests before they are given (i went to one so I know) so it is completely irrelevantg that they got 100% in every test in 2 years.
joeguevara wrote: » What you fail to understand is the leaving cert normally is graded on a bell curve so that the results are always skewed.
joeguevara wrote: » All of this boils down to you don't like Micheal Martin. And the EU will be leading the Brexit negotiations which are already complete as far as the withdrawal agreement goes. For the sake of clarity, who would you prefer to be in the role
Gerry T wrote: » Swap private school and replace with high achieving school, reread. I never said mock results were discriminating, I said high achieving schools being marked down to a country average and low achieving schools being marked up to the national average was Discrimination. BTW, the govt used past years national averages to formulate this years national average. Again your failing to grasp the crux of my post, until you do then my comments don't make any sense to you. And again you fail to understand the implications. Students that went to a high achieving school, that set a goal and worked really hard over 2 years had their grades reduced, in cases they have missed the course they wanted. I thinking that your reply will be, agh sure they can repeat, or boohoo nobody cares about them. I'd prefer someone that can do the Job, can't wait to see how he handles the Brexit developments, his short track record isn't awe inspiring.
Treppen wrote: » The two are not comparable. Would you have told this student in 2019 to suck it up. [url]Https://www.irishexaminer.com/news/arid-30917412.html?type=amp[/url] In her case there was an error in the process, this year given the large deviation from what a school awarded it can only have been an error. (Unless you think an individual student being bumped down 2 grades while those at either side in the ranking are kept is fair).
joeguevara wrote: » Martin wasn't taoiseach when leaving was cancelled. You cant have it both ways. Vast majority are satisfied with the results given and a few aren't. Guess what, its the same as if the leaving took place. Most happy, some not. More to be worried about that Dympna didn't get her H1 in Home Ec because she thoughtr that because 10 got it last year it meant she was guaranteed it.
joeguevara wrote: » Did I say anything about Private schools. You are obsessed with them.
joeguevara wrote: » The reality is that class tests, are biased. But as I said, vast majority are happy with their results. By the way marks in mocks not equating to your end result is not discrimination. Sure why do the grading method at all if you want the mock results to be the result.
joeguevara wrote: » As for your Micheal Martin comment just because some little darlings are boo hooing because they didn't get the result that Miss or Sir said they would. Yeah, makes sense.
Gerry T wrote: » I agree with most of what you say bar that last bit. If a school with a 100 LC students gave out 5h1 in maths and that was the average for the whole country per hundred students then no student was marked down or marked up from a h2. But if you went to a school where 8 students were being given a h1, and deserved it, then 3 of those students were marked down. Again if your school only gave 3h1's then 2 luck h2 students got marked up. That's my understanding of not introducing a schools past performance into the equation. It's a simplistic view but it does seem to be ringing through when it's disadvantage schools that seem to be raving about this years results and high achieving schools complaining. St Kilian's is a great example, they teach through German and every year get way above average compared to other schools in higher level German, usually 40- 50% of students get a h1. This would make perfect sense This year those students were marked down and only 14% got a h1. When the Govt said they would take that into account, one week before the results were due out, under Martin's watch this part of the calculation was removed.
Gerry T wrote: » I never said he was, I said he applied a lot of pressure, it was in his opinion that the exams should be cancelled. He was stepping into the Job and was going the opposite way to Varadkar. Who know's, if he had put weight behind taking the exams then the outcome could have been different. Now that's a naive statement, you think students that go to a private school believe they are entitled to a certain grade. Reality is students that get high grades work hard, no matter what their level of intelligence. It's the amount of hard work that they do that counts. You could spend 6 yrs in a private school and fail every subject if you didn't work. Private schools offer greater choice, can have better facilities and put's your child in an environment where most kids are studying. No other benefit. This is not the same, there's students, again not my kids as they were lucky to get the courses they wanted, that got results well below what they were getting on average through there past 6 years. There's students getting results well below the mocks and this it seems can be caused because you went to a school that on average achieves grades above average schools. That's called discrimination and it's wrong. That's why I blame Martin, it's happening on his watch.
plodder wrote: » I agree. Exams and grades have always been about individual ability, individual work put in, and individual performance in the test itself. You are right that performance does vary a lot from school to school, but the system still depends on the student actually doing the work and the test individually. Before this year, nobody would have argued that Johnny who went to fee paying school should have his grade bumped up from a H5 to a H2 just because he went to that school and they always do well, but he had a bad day on the day. The system they came up with seems as fair as was possible in the circumstances because it is all based on what the student did themselves, not on what other people did in previous years imo.The fact that some schools appear to have been downgraded more than others would have to be seen in the context of how much they had been marked up by their teachers in the first place.
joeguevara wrote: » Martin wasn't taoiseach when leaving was cancelled. You cant have it both ways.
joeguevara wrote: » Vast majority are satisfied with the results given and a few aren't. Guess what, its the same as if the leaving took place. Most happy, some not. More to be worried about that Dympna didn't get her H1 in Home Ec because she thoughtr that because 10 got it last year it meant she was guaranteed it.
Gerry T wrote: » Martin put on a lot of pressure to cancel the exams in the first place. In my opinion that was the first big mistake.
To me it was very easy, break the kids into groups of 8 and put them in a classroom. His second big mistake was to do away with a schools past results. From one yr to the next most schools receive similar results as the previous yr. That's why schools like the Institute attract students in 5th & 6th yr (and no my kids didn't go there). Ignoring that key stat meant that schools that perform above the average would have students marked down while schools that perform under the average would get marked up. 2020 is the year that all students received a averaging result. Think about it, per 100 students in a school you have the same % of students per subject getting the same grade. It's all based on your class ranking and not your mark given. If h1 to h6 is in percentage 5%, 10%, 20%, 30%, 25%, 10%. Then the first 10 students in the ranking get a h1 and the last 10 students get a h6. Teachers didn't know this when they were given the results, they would have been very focused on the % mark given to students. Far less thought given to the students ranking. There could be a bunch of students in the middle from position 8 to 18 that could go in any order, but their all at the same standard. However this system would move those kids up and down per grade all depending on the class ranking. Martin is making a balls of this and he's doing likewise with his communications with covid. He's now in the role and facing very difficult decisions but for me he's consistent, getting things wrong.
Treppen wrote: » Well then if it's a result that they never earned what result should they have gotten? The teachers one? The calculated grades?
Gerry T wrote: » Martin put on a lot of pressure to cancel the exams in the first place. In my opinion that was the first big mistake. To me it was very easy, break the kids into groups of 8 and put them in a classroom. His second big mistake was to do away with a schools past results. From one yr to the next most schools receive similar results as the previous yr. That's why schools like the Institute attract students in 5th & 6th yr (and no my kids didn't go there). Ignoring that key stat meant that schools that perform above the average would have students marked down while schools that perform under the average would get marked up. 2020 is the year that all students received a averaging result. Think about it, per 100 students in a school you have the same % of students per subject getting the same grade. It's all based on your class ranking and not your mark given. If h1 to h6 is in percentage 5%, 10%, 20%, 30%, 25%, 10%. Then the first 10 students in the ranking get a h1 and the last 10 students get a h6. Teachers didn't know this when they were given the results, they would have been very focused on the % mark given to students. Far less thought given to the students ranking. There could be a bunch of students in the middle from position 8 to 18 that could go in any order, but their all at the same standard. However this system would move those kids up and down per grade all depending on the class ranking. Martin is making a balls of this and he's doing likewise with his communications with covid. He's now in the role and facing very difficult decisions but for me he's consistent, getting things wrong.
Gerry T wrote: » Martin put on a lot of pressure to cancel the exams in the first place. In my opinion that was the first big mistake. To me it was very easy, break the kids into groups of 8 and put them in a classroom. His second big mistake was to do away with a schools past results. From one yr to the next most schools receive similar results as the previous yr. That's why schools like the Institute attract students in 5th & 6th yr (and no my kids didn't go there). Ignoring that key stat meant that schools that perform above the average would have students marked down while schools that perform under the average would get marked up. 2020 is the year that all students received a averaging result. Think about it, per 100 students in a school you have the same % of students per subject getting the same grade. It's all based on your class ranking and not your mark given. If h1 to h6 is in percentage 5%, 10%, 20%, 30%, 25%, 10%. Then the first 10 students in the ranking get a h1 and the last 10 students get a h6. Teachers didn't know this when they were given the results, they would have been very focused on the % mark given to students. Far less thought given to the students ranking. There could be a bunch of students in the middle from position 8 to 18 that could go in any order, but their all at the same standard. However this system would move those kids up and down per grade all depending on the class ranking. Martinis making a balls of this and he's doing likewise with his communications with covid. He's now in the role and facing very difficult decisions but for me he's consistent, getting things wrong.
joeguevara wrote: » What has this got to do with Micheal Martin, was he in the private school teaching them?
Treppen wrote: » Michael Martin is the Taoiseach, it was his government's decision to ignore previous school results... But yet they didn't ignore previous national grade averages. Which do you think would be closer a national average which is a mix of all schools , or what the school gets on average every year in that subject?
road_high wrote: » You can bet your bottom dollar it’ll be a handful taking this option- the whole lot of them should be taking the exams, no exceptions. An utter farcical cop out. Whining about results that you never earned and were plucked from the sky- spare me.
Gerry T wrote: » I had two doing the LC. For both of them the were marked down in all marks given bar one subject. Yes they both went to a private school where this yr there were no 625 students but in previous years there would be. For my pair it's no issue as they both got the courses they wanted, they were average students, neither great or poor, but their friends weren't so lucky. My take on it is the grade the teacher gave is less important to the class ranking. I'm open to correction on this, the way I see it, without class standardisation if the state proportion (made up) in Maths 5%h1, 10%h2, 10%h3 etc.... then per 100 students 5 get a h1, 10 a h2 and so on. If your school has 100 pupils doing the LC then that school after adjustment will get on average 5 h1 in Maths. This is the inequality of it all, a school that performs consistently better than most, say the institute in Dublin (and no my pair didn't go there) where out of 100 Math's students their is possibly 10 getting a h1, then 5 students get downgraded. Likewise a school that historically might only get 1 or 2 h1's will find 2 or 3 students upgraded. This is where class ranking is so important if you are ranked 6,7,7 in the class and while you might deserve a h1 your the pupil getting downgraded. The moral of this sorry saga, for 2021 enroll in a school that performs typically very poorly and make sure your not in a class with all the high achievers in the school. Schools that would typically perform better than the average school have been disadvantaged, that includes private and public schools. What a student deserved has been replaced by a class ranking so your not measured on your achievement v an exam but v your fellow class mates. IF correct such a **** and totally biased system. M.Martin hang your head in shame. p.s. While I disagree with one or two of the grades teaches have given my pair, I do feel they gave what was in the best of their judgement that child deserved. However I don't think it's possible to be fully impartial in getting class ranking correct. EDIT: While my pair had their marks reduced, luckily one child had no grades reduced, the other had two grade reductions. But both got border marks, 59 and 69, but in neither case did they get a grade increase.
It wasnt me123 wrote: » No, those skills are taught from day dot, we are talking about life skills, not just educational skills, which are important. Employers are not supposed to teach you how to perform everyday, not just for 3 hours a year. You are not supposed to cram, you are missing the point. If you worked reasonably well to very good in 5th year and 6th year, and then did a exam at the end that only made up 30% of the total of the LC, then you should do well. You don't get a level of academic ability by completing a 3 hour exam - you get someone who can spit out stuff better than the next person. And you should be doing 5th / 6th year at age 17/18 - not 15/16 - that is way too young to be trying to work out what you want to do as a career. Work well this year and next and you will be fine.
StackSteevens wrote: » Was the option to sit the LC in November not specially designed to facilitate such disappointed students?
Millionaire only not wrote: » I have plenty proof of snobbery in private schools , same as little Johnny who gets law like his mammy and daddy strolls through college because his job is waiting for him on other side . Try working your way into it from a humble beginning and no family practice to carry u along !
