By Gavin Mackintosh-
Grade boundaries for G.C.S. E exams will benefit Wales pupils more than England, as examiners continue to take account of the pandemic two years after social distancing and lockdown ended. the minimum number of marks needed to achieve each grade and vary each year to reflect differences in papers. .
Grading in Wales is expected to be more generous than pre-pandemic and will be set midway between 2019 results, the last sat summer exams pre-pandemic, and 2022, WJEC- the Wales Examining Board has said.
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Exam board , WJEC said it gave students and teachers some advance information of topics, themes, texts and other content to expect in this summer’s papers, yet English exam boards, used by some schools in Wales, did not give advance warning and there have been no changes to WJEC exam content as there were for 2021 and 2022.
Pupils in England were given no advance notice of what areas to revise for their G.C.S.E exams.
A representative of WJEC told The Eye Of Media’Com: ”The specs are different between Wales and England. The exam papers are different”
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Asked why pupils in Wales were given advance notice of which areas to prepare, but pupils in England were not, the representative said because the government in Wales wanted to give advance notice, but the government in England did not.
Record results were posted for GCSE results during the pandemic, and critics argued that grades were inflated when exams were cancelled and results awarded on teacher assessment in 2020 and 2021. The aim now is to steady the system back but also take account of Covid disruption to learning.
All academic bodies say the purpose of grade boundaries is to take it back to pre pandemic levels.
Announcing its post-Covid approach, exam regulator Qualifications Wales said last autumn that the intention was for summer 2023 results to fall broadly midway between the 2019 and 2022 results. It said this would takes into account the disruption experienced by learners during the pandemic and the fact that AS qualifications and some GCSE units were awarded in 2022 – using a different grading approach – and that will have an impact on summer 2023 grading.
“The move signals the next step on the Welsh qualification system’s journey back to pre-pandemic assessment arrangements, whilst also maintaining support for learners, schools and colleges with advance information and a supportive approach to grading,” the regulator said.
The current trajectory means that there will be a return to pre-pandemic standards in 2024, Qualification Wales added.
“To protect students against the disruption of recent years, and in case students’ performance is slightly lower than before the pandemic, senior examiners will use the grades achieved by previous cohorts of pupils, along with prior attainment data, to inform their decisions about where to set grade boundaries,” the DofE said.
Role Of Grade Boundaries
A representative of Qualification Wales told The Eye Of Media.Com: ”Grade boundaries play a crucial role in the education system, serving as a means to determine students’ achievements and proficiency levels. These boundaries establish the thresholds required to attain specific grades, reflecting the performance expectations and standards set by educational institutions.
The logic and justification behind grade boundaries is said to lie in the principles of fairness, consistency, and accuracy in assessing student progress.
‘They are expected to ensure standardization across different assessments, subjects, and institutions, establishing a common framework that allows for consistent evaluation of student performance”
However, pupils for Wales appear to be getting a better deal than pupils from England.
Academics in England say each system is different with a different curriculum, and therefore has a different set of criteria that’s fair to every student.
The guarantee of anonymity has been cited as one of the reliable aspects of the system,
Reflecting Content Difficulty and Rigor
Grade boundaries have always taken place in the Uk on an annual basis, to take into account the difficulty and complexity of the assessed content. Certain subjects and topics may inherently be more challenging than others, requiring a higher level of mastery to achieve a particular grade.
The Department Of Education says it allows for adjustments to reflect these variations, ensuring that students are not unfairly penalized due to the inherent difficulty of the material. This approach ensures that the grading system is equitable and acknowledges the effort and achievement relative to the demands of the subject.
However, critics say grade boundaries question the confidence of examining boards in setting standards for their exams, and provides a misleading picture of the standard of education if the grades are adjusted to match performance.
But giving the 2023 cohort some protection against any impact of COVID-19 disruption is the right thing to do.
Last September, Jo Saxton said are the same protection that was given for the first cohorts of students taking reformed GCSEs and A levels from 2017 onwards. That meant not disadvantaging students who might have performed less well because they were the first to sit new exams.
Saxton said : ”Exams and other formal assessments give students the fairest chance to show what they know, understand and can do, because the rules are the same for everyone.
It’s important that we get back to normal so that grades set young people up for college, university or employment in the best possible way, and help them to make the right choices about their future interests drive our decisions – both this year’s students and past and future students. For us, that means qualifications that maintain their value, now and in the future, and stand the test of tim
A level teacher John Dhumbra believes exam marks should not be adjusted according to the difficulty of the paper, but reflect the examiner’s conviction that the paper was set at an appropriate level of difficulty. He told the Eye Of Media.Com: ” I think it is actually unfair to some cohort of students if the marks of pupils in another cohort is adjusted to suit the examiner’s perception of how difficult the paper was or even by using performance scores to make that judgement
”There will always be some students who will not benefit from grade boundaries and be marginalised from the advantageous process it provides for others
‘Examiners should try and make exams at roughly the same level of difficulty, and award grades according to performance, not mess around with the grades then claim the standard of education is high. I don’t agree with that system”.
Researcher Joshua Hopwood said: ”Educational institutions strive to maintain stability in grading standards, ensuring that students are not disadvantaged or advantaged due to changes in exam difficulty or variability in teacher assessment practices.
”Grade boundaries actually help institutions maintain a consistent level of challenge and expectation, which is crucial for fairness and longitudinal analysis of student progress.
Advocates of grade boundaries say the system presents a supportive mechanism to pupils through its system of anonymity. The markers don’t know who the student is, and use their professional expertise to assess the students.
A university lecturer from Queen Mary University who did not want to be named added: ”Grade boundaries allow for external benchmarking and comparison. Educational institutions can assess the performance of their students against national or international standards, ensuring that their educational programs are rigorous and competitive.
They provide a common reference point, enabling comparisons with other institutions and promoting accountability in the education sector.
A and AS results will be out on August 17. GCSE results will be out on August 24
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