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Predicted Grades Appeals

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12357…17

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    #122
    rainbowtrout
    Registered Users Posts: 15,381 ✭✭✭✭rainbowtrout


    soso02 wrote: »
    My point was that the exitence of access routes like the HEAR scheme might mitigate the effects the algorithim might have on high performing students in disadvantaged schools.
    Allowing a 20/30 point reduction for each course might be more appropriate.

    But what has that got to do with my point? It was suggested that everyone be admitted to the course of their choice. Only the highest achievers would get into second year and everyone else would get the boot. To restart college and apply for another course would mean fees to repeat first year. This would disproportionately disadvantage students from poorer backgrounds, in terms of paying fees for the year and losing the grant for the year. It has nothing to do with the HEAR scheme.


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    #123
    RealJohn
    Registered Users Posts: 2,099 ✭✭✭RealJohn


    rainbowtrout wrote: »
    But what has that got to do with my point? It was suggested that everyone be admitted to the course of their choice. Only the highest achievers would get into second year and everyone else would get the boot. To restart college and apply for another course would mean fees to repeat first year. This would disproportionately disadvantage students from poorer backgrounds, in terms of paying fees for the year and losing the grant for the year. It has nothing to do with the HEAR scheme.
    To play devil's advocate here (because I'm not suggesting that everyone should be allowed to just choose their course), if a student didn't fail the year, but didn't manage to finish high enough up in the class to get into second year, purely based on course capacity, I don't think you can reasonably charge them for repeating or changing course.


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    #124
    rainbowtrout
    Registered Users Posts: 15,381 ✭✭✭✭rainbowtrout


    soso02 wrote: »
    It's disappointing the expertise of the SEC wasn't utilised.

    Home-schooled students won't have their results subject to standardisation. This furthers the case to completely abandon standardisation.

    I would have thought the gender profiling element of the standradisation process falls foul of the equal status act ??? Discrimination on the gender ground..another court case no doubt.

    Girls outperform boys in almost every LC subject every year. The statistics are there to back it up. If it's found that it reverses this year based on teacher grades then it shows that there is a bias in the grades submitted from schools. So presumably a check will be run to see how the grades pan out when split by gender to see how it compares to previous years and if it's wildly out of kilter then have a look at it on a school based level.


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    #125
    rainbowtrout
    Registered Users Posts: 15,381 ✭✭✭✭rainbowtrout


    RealJohn wrote: »
    To play devil's advocate here (because I'm not suggesting that everyone should be allowed to just choose their course), if a student didn't fail the year, but didn't manage to finish high enough up in the class to get into second year, purely based on course capacity, I don't think you can reasonably charge them for repeating or changing course.

    Charges or not, it wouldn't be practical to have lots of extremely lopsided courses then have all those students re-enter the system the following year with a new cohort of students coming in also from LC 2021.


    Colleges aren't going to take them in for free, and I don't see the government footing the bill to allow them do a course of their choice for a year and if they don't make it through fund them again to restart the following year.


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    #126
    RealJohn
    Registered Users Posts: 2,099 ✭✭✭RealJohn


    Personally, I'd favour a return to a system like in the old days, where it simply came down to how many honours and how many passes you got. Now, we'd have to complicated it, obviously, because that system on its own would lead to courses being massively oversubscribed, and still needing some sort of tie breaker, but I don't think it should be a straight points shootout. It would also mean that the accuracy of predicted grades would be less important.

    What I'd like is for courses to set a list of preferred subjects and preferred attainment in those subjects. Those subjects should obviously be relevant to the course.
    For example, if you wanted to study civil engineering, they might say that you needed to get a H4 in maths, a H4 in physics, and a H4 in technical graphics, and as long as you had those, you were automatically moved to the head of the queue (and maybe you don't get in at all without them, if the course is oversubscribed).
    You might then have sort of second tier subject requirements, like say a H4 in chemistry or applied maths or physics & chemistry, which is still behind the above three, but ahead of people who have none of the above, and so on. Then if a course is oversubscribed, you might further break the candidates down by how well exactly they did in the required subjects, so the people with the H1s get in ahead of the people with H2s, etc, but that only comes into it if candidates are level on the basics, or they could interview the candidates at the cut off, but automatically accept those who got in with room to spare.
    That way, the whole thing becomes less about points, and more about students being admitted to courses that they're actually suited to.

    I would say that there would probably also need to be a limited number of places on courses reserved for students who might not have all of the requirements just because their school wasn't in a position to offer the necessary subjects, as is often the case in smaller schools, but because those places would be limited, it might be more realistic to do interviews for candidates in those circumstances, as opposed to interviewing 5000 candidates for a medicine course with 100 places.


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    #127
    RealJohn
    Registered Users Posts: 2,099 ✭✭✭RealJohn


    rainbowtrout wrote: »
    Girls outperform boys in almost every LC subject every year. The statistics are there to back it up. If it's found that it reverses this year based on teacher grades then it shows that there is a bias in the grades submitted from schools. So presumably a check will be run to see how the grades pan out when split by gender to see how it compares to previous years and if it's wildly out of kilter then have a look at it on a school based level.
    The statistics were there for car insurance too, but it was still discrimination based on gender in any individual case where a young man was charged more for insurance than a young woman.
    Same applies. We all know that the trend should show that the girls/women outperform the boys/men, but any man whose teacher gave him a higher mark than a woman in his class, who winds up with a lower mark to make sure the figures work has a case, in my opinion.


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    #128
    soso02
    Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 69 ✭✭soso02


    RealJohn wrote: »
    as long as you had those, you were automatically moved to the head of the queue

    I would be completely against such a move. Second level education should not be about preparing students for third level. It is a separate entity and should be treated and respected as such.

    Everything is taught from scratch in college anyways.


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    #129
    soso02
    Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 69 ✭✭soso02


    rainbowtrout wrote: »
    So presumably a check will be run to see how the grades pan out when split by gender to see how it compares to previous years and if it's wildly out of kilter then have a look at it on a school based level.

    So what you're saying is John is less deserving of his H1 in French because he goes to an all-boys school ?
    As noted, this does not work well on a micro-level and students have every right not to be discriminated against on the gender ground.

    Dress it up as you like, it's sexism.
    Do you feel the same way about socio-economic status ?


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    #130
    rainbowtrout
    Registered Users Posts: 15,381 ✭✭✭✭rainbowtrout


    RealJohn wrote: »
    Personally, I'd favour a return to a system like in the old days, where it simply came down to how many honours and how many passes you got. Now, we'd have to complicated it, obviously, because that system on its own would lead to courses being massively oversubscribed, and still needing some sort of tie breaker, but I don't think it should be a straight points shootout. It would also mean that the accuracy of predicted grades would be less important.

    What I'd like is for courses to set a list of preferred subjects and preferred attainment in those subjects. Those subjects should obviously be relevant to the course.
    For example, if you wanted to study civil engineering, they might say that you needed to get a H4 in maths, a H4 in physics, and a H4 in technical graphics, and as long as you had those, you were automatically moved to the head of the queue (and maybe you don't get in at all without them, if the course is oversubscribed).
    You might then have sort of second tier subject requirements, like say a H4 in chemistry or applied maths or physics & chemistry, which is still behind the above three, but ahead of people who have none of the above, and so on. Then if a course is oversubscribed, you might further break the candidates down by how well exactly they did in the required subjects, so the people with the H1s get in ahead of the people with H2s, etc, but that only comes into it if candidates are level on the basics, or they could interview the candidates at the cut off, but automatically accept those who got in with room to spare.
    That way, the whole thing becomes less about points, and more about students being admitted to courses that they're actually suited to.

    I would say that there would probably also need to be a limited number of places on courses reserved for students who might not have all of the requirements just because their school wasn't in a position to offer the necessary subjects, as is often the case in smaller schools, but because those places would be limited, it might be more realistic to do interviews for candidates in those circumstances, as opposed to interviewing 5000 candidates for a medicine course with 100 places.


    That's far too complex and too restrictive. What if I am interesting in science and engineering but don't know which one I want at the start of fifth year? Not to mind students who start out wanting say primary school teaching in fifth year but towards the end of sixth year decide they want to become an accountant.

    There are already subject requirements for college entry and they usually come from a wide pool of subjects to give everyone a chance. Typically most science courses require at least one science subject at HL, theory being that if a student has an aptitude for a science subject they should be able to grasp the concepts on the course.

    If you were to narrow it down and say that a student will be put to the top of the queue because of the subjects they chose it will become very unequal. It's not even about small schools and their lack of subject choice, but there is often a lack of subject choice for students in bigger schools because of the way the subject blocks fall. It would also restrict students who want to change courses in the future.


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    #131
    rainbowtrout
    Registered Users Posts: 15,381 ✭✭✭✭rainbowtrout


    soso02 wrote: »
    So what you're saying is John is less deserving of his H1 in French because he goes to an all-boys school ?
    As noted, this does not work well on a micro-level and students have every right not to be discriminated against on the gender ground.

    Dress it up as you like, it's sexism.
    Do you feel the same way about socio-economic status ?

    No I'm not saying that, and you seem to be spending the afternoon attributing opinions to me that I haven't stated. Why is that?

    And you also seem to have very little grasp on how the gender statistics might fare out.


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    #132
    RealJohn
    Registered Users Posts: 2,099 ✭✭✭RealJohn


    soso02 wrote: »
    I would be completely against such a move. Second level education should not be about preparing students for third level. It is a separate entity and should be treated and respected as such.

    Everything is taught from scratch in college anyways.
    I agree, however I don't see why the colleges couldn't and shouldn't treat it this way. It would remove the pressure on schools to teach to the exam, because it wouldn't matter so much if students got H1s or H4s (for example), as long as they picked the right subjects, so teachers could go back to teaching the course.

    It's all well and good to say that colleges start from scratch anyway, which is true, to an extent, but you don't want to wind up in a civil engineering course, for example, having not done physics, and discover that you really don't have any aptitude for physics.


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    #133
    soso02
    Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 69 ✭✭soso02


    rainbowtrout wrote: »
    And you also seem to have very little grasp on how the gender statistics might fare out.

    Yes, the department will see to it that young men's dreams are scuppered to maintain the status quo.

    They are carrying out this validation with the intention of downgrading either sex.
    Why else would they do it ? This screams of discrimination.


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    #134
    soso02
    Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 69 ✭✭soso02


    rainbowtrout wrote: »

    Colleges aren't going to take them in for free, and I don't see the government footing the bill to allow them do a course of their choice for a year and if they don't make it through fund them again to restart the following year.

    Didn't Joe McHugh announce an additional year of SUSI/Free Fees funding if students secure a higher place on the CAO ?
    Don't know where exactly the money is coming from.


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    #135
    rainbowtrout
    Registered Users Posts: 15,381 ✭✭✭✭rainbowtrout


    soso02 wrote: »
    Yes, the department will see to it that young men's dreams are scuppered to maintain the status quo.

    They are carrying out this validation with the intention of downgrading either sex.
    Why else would they do it ? This screams of discrimination.

    That's a fairly baseless claim for which you have no evidence. Less of the hyperbole please.


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    #136
    Millionaire only not
    Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 1,625 ✭✭✭Millionaire only not


    am_zarathustra wrote: »
    There were two cases in Ireland on the eve of the day the LC would have started, the 2nd of June....cases not deaths. The R rate was steadily falling for 6 weeks. The restrictions were clearly working and restaurant/pubs opened during the LC window. It could have happened. They government bottled it bacause kids were stressed and a couple of journalists had vested interests. We knew from international examples that the lockdown would work. The papers were ready, the teachers were willing, the SEC would have figured out correcting and the mess that is absolutely coming could have been avoided.

    People are suggesting marques and whole school returns with a r rate above 1 and hundreds of cases a day but the LC couldn't happen

    Yes that it fine how could u tell that was going to be the outcome 2 months before that . Every other country had cancelled!
    How can u tell a student to keep studying , it’s on , it’s off go online etc . The sooner it moves to continuous assessment the better .
    One student coughs inside in the middle of an exam what do u think was the outcome then for the day ?
    What supervisors was going to go into class rooms ? The teachers hardly want to go back ffs.
    Just wait till u see the calamity when schools start back and ask how are next year students going to be ready !
    The stupidity of some people on here , get them into college if there not able for the course the college won’t be long telling them and rightly so !


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    #137
    soso02
    Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 69 ✭✭soso02


    Millionaire only not wrote: »
    Yes that it fine how could u tell that was going to be the outcome 2 months before that . Every other country had cancelled!
    How can u tell a student to keep studying , it’s on , it’s off go online etc . The sooner it moves to continuous assessment the better .
    One student coughs inside in the middle of an exam what do u think was the outcome then for the day ?
    What supervisors was going to go into class rooms ? The teachers hardly want to go back ffs.
    Just wait till u see the calamity when schools start back and ask how are next year students going to be ready !
    The stupidity of some people on here , get them into college if there not able for the course the college won’t be long telling them and rightly so !

    Really ? The government's roadmap was issued before they announced the cancellation. The holding of the LC seemed very doable.

    Many countries went ahead with their exams, Germany being one example.

    <Personal abuse snipped>
    Please read the charter.

    Stress ? I know many students who delighted in the fact they had an additional 2 months of study. The voiceless minority


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    #138
    soso02
    Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 69 ✭✭soso02


    rainbowtrout wrote: »
    That's a fairly baseless claim for which you have no evidence. Less of the hyperbole please.

    I found it very odd that the SEC continued to publish a gender breakdown of results every year. Will come in great use this year, I suppose.


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    #139
    RealJohn
    Registered Users Posts: 2,099 ✭✭✭RealJohn


    rainbowtrout wrote: »
    That's far too complex and too restrictive. What if I am interesting in science and engineering but don't know which one I want at the start of fifth year?
    Well then you're going to pick science subjects and technical graphics anyway. That's not a good example.
    Let's say it's science and business though. You pick one of each, and your third subject could be either (or neither), and if you're a subject short, you go down the interview route. It would be easy to show that you did two science subjects and one business subject because you weren't sure which way you wanted to go, but that by the time the CAO came around, you realised you wanted to do business, so you put the business courses at the top, and that's why you fell short, but would still be a good candidate.
    rainbowtrout wrote: »
    Not to mind students who start out wanting say primary school teaching in fifth year but towards the end of sixth year decide they want to become an accountant.
    Again, they still have the reserve/interview route, but you can't account for every possibility.
    rainbowtrout wrote: »
    There are already subject requirements for college entry
    There are, but they're a joke. I have a friend who put down a denominated science course on his CAO, failed the subject in question in the leaving, but was still offered a place on the course because they had another science subject they hadn't failed. Unsurprisingly, the person ended up dropping out.
    rainbowtrout wrote: »
    ... and they usually come from a wide pool of subjects to give everyone a chance.
    Why should everyone be given a chance, when some people are clearly more deserving than others? Why should someone who knew what they wanted, and picked three science subjects and got H3s in all of them lose out to someone who got H1s in biology, French, and music, and figured there were better job opportunities in science?
    If there's space for both on the course, great. If there isn't, give it to the person with the three science subjects.
    rainbowtrout wrote: »
    If you were to narrow it down and say that a student will be put to the top of the queue because of the subjects they chose it will become very unequal. It's not even about small schools and their lack of subject choice, but there is often a lack of subject choice for students in bigger schools because of the way the subject blocks fall. It would also restrict students who want to change courses in the future.
    School managers need to manage that though (and there would need to be some consistency across more popular courses too - not something like half of the universities want chemistry but not technical graphics for engineering, and the other half want technical graphics but not chemistry).
    It could also be the case that the courses should have a pool of preferred subjects/levels to get onto the priority list, but that you only need two or three of them, so people still have some flexibility, while still not penalising those who knew what they wanted in the first place.

    And then, like I said, school managers would need to make sure that their subjects are blocked in such a way as to allow students to maximise their chances, because some school managers do seem to lack cop on, in that regard. I had a principal who timetabled the two science subjects being offered against each other, and it hadn't occurred to him that someone who's really into science would want to do both, and probably wouldn't want to do what was being offered in other blocks. Obviously, availability of teachers is a factor, but it isn't rocket science to avoid putting science subjects against each other, or business subjects against each other, or whatever combinations are popular in arts degrees (history and geography?) against each other.


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    #140
    RealJohn
    Registered Users Posts: 2,099 ✭✭✭RealJohn


    soso02 wrote: »
    I found it very odd that the SEC continued to publish a gender breakdown of results every year. Will come in great use this year, I suppose.
    It's fine, because girls come out on top. If boys came out on top, it would be seen as discrimination, and the SEC would have been told to stop doing it by now.


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    #141
    Treppen
    Registered Users Posts: 4,555 ✭✭✭Treppen


    RealJohn wrote: »
    It's fine, because girls come out on top. If boys came out on top, it would be seen as discrimination, and the SEC would have been told to stop doing it by now.

    Actually boys come out on subjects like physics chemistry and maths.


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    #142
    RealJohn
    Registered Users Posts: 2,099 ✭✭✭RealJohn


    Treppen wrote: »
    Actually boys come out on subjects like physics chemistry and maths.
    Sounds like sexism to me. Tell me where you work, so I can get you sacked.
    Also, tell me the addresses of your friends and family, so that I can call around and abuse them for being associated with you.


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    #143
    Millionaire only not
    Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 1,625 ✭✭✭Millionaire only not


    You were not going to please everyone whatever route was taken !
    There is an opportunity to overhaul this exam with continuous assessment , 50% marks before the final exam should be from in house exams .
    One thing I don’t like is teachers having been told to destroy all evidence how they came up with there results for students!


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    #144
    Zookey123
    Registered Users Posts: 340 ✭✭Zookey123


    This predictive grade thing sounds insane to me. Also what about students who do subjects on their own and sit the exam? Like I studied biology and applied maths at home without a teacher how would they deal with those students?


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    #145
    rainbowtrout
    Registered Users Posts: 15,381 ✭✭✭✭rainbowtrout


    RealJohn wrote: »
    Why should everyone be given a chance, when some people are clearly more deserving than others? Why should someone who knew what they wanted, and picked three science subjects and got H3s in all of them lose out to someone who got H1s in biology, French, and music, and figured there were better job opportunities in science?
    If there's space for both on the course, great. If there isn't, give it to the person with the three science subjects.


    You're basically saying that a student who decided at 15 that they wanted to study science is more deserving than a student who figured that out at 17. Because a lot of students don't know what they want to do after Junior Cert. Some don't know by March of Leaving Cert.

    I'm not going to quote your whole post, but sometimes two sciences will end up in a block because only one student chose both of them. You cannot design blocks to accommodate one student only. Most schools will generate subject blocks to maximise the number of students who will get their four choices, and then from the remainder there might be a few who only get three subjects, and occasionally there will be a student who only gets two subjects.


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    #146
    soso02
    Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 69 ✭✭soso02


    Zookey123 wrote: »
    This predictive grade thing sounds insane to me. Also what about students who do subjects on their own and sit the exam? Like I studied biology and applied maths at home without a teacher how would they deal with those students?

    Up until this week, if there was no objective evidence students could not receive a grade.

    Last week's high court ruling means home schooled students can now receive calculated grades. An independent teacher will be assigned to scrutinise the evidence (mock results, assignments), this of course is open to all sorts of abuse.


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    #147
    soso02
    Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 69 ✭✭soso02


    Millionaire only not wrote: »
    One thing I don’t like is teachers having been told to destroy all evidence how they came up with there results for students!

    I agree. To be honest, I wish we were made submit evidence to support our marks. At least then a human could analyse the evidence and see if there were grounds to downgrade the student.

    Hard to believe Norma said the department knows a lot more about students because teachers submitted a percentage mark as opposed to a grade. She's grasping at straws !


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    #148
    joe40
    Registered Users Posts: 3,811 ✭✭✭joe40


    Millionaire only not wrote: »
    You were not going to please everyone whatever route was taken !
    There is an opportunity to overhaul this exam with continuous assessment , 50% marks before the final exam should be from in house exams .
    One thing I don’t like is teachers having been told to destroy all evidence how they came up with there results for students!

    I agree with the continuous assessment, but it has to be exams set and marked by the exam board's to ensure standardisation and objectivity.

    That is the system with module exams in the North. It made my job of predicting grades easier but still massive amount of uncertainty.


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    #149
    RealJohn
    Registered Users Posts: 2,099 ✭✭✭RealJohn


    Millionaire only not wrote: »
    You were not going to please everyone whatever route was taken !
    There is an opportunity to overhaul this exam with continuous assessment , 50% marks before the final exam should be from in house exams .
    One thing I don’t like is teachers having been told to destroy all evidence how they came up with there results for students!
    Continuous assessment, in the way it’s likely to be implemented (if it ever is) has all of the same problems predicted grades do. The predicted grades are essentially being based on continuous assessment, and it’s been problem after problem.


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    #150
    RealJohn
    Registered Users Posts: 2,099 ✭✭✭RealJohn


    rainbowtrout wrote: »
    You're basically saying that a student who decided at 15 that they wanted to study science is more deserving than a student who figured that out at 17. Because a lot of students don't know what they want to do after Junior Cert. Some don't know by March of Leaving Cert.
    If that means they’re going into their course with more of the relevant knowledge, of course they do. When they decided is irrelevant. Their subject knowledge is.
    Otherwise, you might as well go with letting everyone pick whatever course they want and let the university exams sort them out at the end of first year.
    rainbowtrout wrote: »
    I'm not going to quote your whole post, but sometimes two sciences will end up in a block because only one student chose both of them. You cannot design blocks to accommodate one student only. Most schools will generate subject blocks to maximise the number of students who will get their four choices, and then from the remainder there might be a few who only get three subjects, and occasionally there will be a student who only gets two subjects.
    I know. There are exceptional cases, but again, you can’t account for every minority case. What I’ve proposed still has a back door for the small number of students who have a good reason not to have met the course requirements, but still rewards the ones who have more relevant knowledge ahead of those who got better marks in subjects with no relevance to the course they chose.


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    #151
    am_zarathustra
    Registered Users Posts: 1,393 ✭✭✭am_zarathustra


    I'd be absolutely happy with the system for A levels, a real exam, set and corrected externally at the end of 5th year. It would help kids modulate their work ethic too, are they on track for what they want or do they need to put in more work.

    Not that many subjects are 100% at the end as is. No practical subject like woodwork is mostly about the exam.home EC, History, Geog etc have projects. Languages have the oral. I'd love etc Id love to see them rolled out across more subjects but submitted the end of 5th year.


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