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https://www.dailymail.com/news/article-16010535/Teachers-underestimate-grades-boys-study.html
di CasualSmurf
38 commenti
I was one of 4 boys who took English Lit at A-Level in my year.
I struggled with the coursework and essays and never managed to get good marks. I couldn’t figure out why. I’d always been a good student but was now unable to get it right. My teachers predicted me a C at best for my final grade.
I took my AS end of year exam (anonymous and independently marked) and got an A.
The next parents evening, the teacher told me “I didn’t deserve to do as well as I had”
(I still managed to just squeak an A overall in the end, by literally a couple of points)
I can believe it. Long time ago but I was predicted Es and Us at A level but got As and Bs. Probably because I was sometimes a bit of a dickhead in class at 15-16 but hardly the worst and my GCSEs were mostly fine.
It’s such a terrible system to determine a person’s future based upon a teachers vibes of the teenager. I did much better than what I was predicted because I worked hard
Every single prediction I had at GCSE and A-level that didn’t match what I achieved was lower – many times considerably so. I can’t blame them – I was a terrible student during term time – but I had to beg my A-level teachers to up their predictions just so I had a chance at applying to the unis I wanted to attend.
It’s literally crazy this is still the system.
Oh it systematically disadvantages boys? That makes more sense.
Easy fix – scrap the predicted grades system in terms of influence over university admissions. Potentially more brutal for students who underperform, but unconscionable to continue this current system where there is a clear gender bias
Wait this is STILL how they do things? In what world are a teacher’s predicted A-Level grades still so vital. Madness
Definitely underestimated mine. Really feel for the kids that had to live through that nonsense.
The only possible good it might have done is cast a light on the massive bias against boys in the system.
Teachers are also criticised for over predicting grades. What happens in the exam (or during marking) is out of their hands. They can’t win.
Black people get approx 20% longer sentences for the same crimes and people say this is evidence of institutional racism.
Men get approx 60% longer sentences for the same crimes than women but this is fine and normal.
I don’t think it’s necessarily just boys. It can affect anyone who doesn’t fit the stereotype of the “ideal” student which is likely more common in boys.
There’s also evidence that teachers mark work worse from lower socio economic backgrounds than when they don’t know (using blind studies).
I was predicted ABCD and ended up getting straight As. Even after getting As at AS Levels, I was constantly being told I wouldn’t.
I found it particularly noticeable in maths and the sciences, where I was consistently underestimated, but the boys were overestimated.
I thinks it’s a bad system. It’s basically magic guessing. You can be capable of getting a much higher grade but if your predicted isn’t high enough you will not be given a place. My a levels were a lot higher than my predicted graders and I want able to apply for the courses I would have been able to get if my actual grades were my predicted
The whole prediction system should stop. Teachers in state schools underestimate grades systematically. It is also not helping students who excel in exams rather than coursework, including girls. Some girls do better in written exam than coursework. Coursework is too judgemental. Marking is not consistent. No idea why it is still allowed.
Some people’s progress isn’t linear, and instead they make big jumps after long plateaus.
I distinctly remember being a C student in GCSE Maths and then suddenly several things just clicked for me about 4months out and I got an A/A* on every paper from then on.
How about binning the notoriously unreliable pre-qualification application system and save everyone a whole lot of aggro?
Apply to university with the grades you actually achieved, not with wild guesses designed to boost school league table results.
The Mail are trying to paint this as teachers vindictively predicted boys low grades because the girls are better behaved.
The girls are getting higher predicted grades because they more consistently put in effort throughout the year. You can only predict the grade based on the work that that student is turning into you.
So stupid to predict grades. You havent done the test yet but you are given opportunity based on a predicted outcome. Sure the prediction is more accurate than not most of the time, but its a really fucked up way to do things. I got no university offers my first time around, but actually got fine A levels after a resit and graduated with a 1st from Bristol. My teacher refused to predict me higher than a B in maths which would basically have disqualified me from every course I wanted to do.
It sucks for the teachers too, they dont want to penalise kids but if they’re wrong about grades they get penalised themselves.
My Nephew went to a school in Coventry, one named after a famous monarch with many wives…
He was predicted A/B in one particular subject after taking his mocks.
Then covid struck and they could not take exams so the teachers were instructed to give then a grade based on the mock results.
The teachers were given a set amount of grades that could be handed out.
Quelle surprise when he, along with other well performing students received a C whilst the children of teachers recieved A grades despite achieving C grades in their mocks.
This created a lot of problems for him trying to get into uni; he ahd to settle for one
Corrupt and don’t even try to hide it.
Correct. I had a business studies teacher who absolutely hated me. Dumped me on the foundation GCSE, so I was capped at a C. Annoying, given that I got all but 2 questions right on the exam, and got a perfect score on the coursework.
A-Levels are definitely a huge difficulty spike. For GCSEs you can mostly get by learning a few formulas, terms, and rules. Its testing the ability to apply knowledge in fairly basic ways. Teachers are very prepared to teach to the test, and tell students exactly what will give the students a higher grade.
At A-Level, you have to really critically engage and create. Its when you go from a being a person who can get by in an entry-level unskilled job, to someone who has the skill to participate in a profession. For a lot of people, its just not what they are good at, and they might be more successful with an apprenticeship or vocational qualification. GCSE teachers need to push kids harder to prepare them for A-Levels.
It also doesn’t help that A-Levels require more determination form the student. At GCSE level, its your teacher’s job to motivate you, and your parents job to make sure you stay in school. At A-Level, its mostly your own fault if you fail, and your own consequences if you don’t study in your off hours. Many A-Level students work part-time, and prioritise wages now over potential career success.
No, predicted grades are based on mock exams. It’s very common for pupils to do no work, bomb the mocks, and then beg (and get their parents to beg) for high predicted grades. Grades that are made up, based on no evidence, only the child’s belief that they will be able to cram at the end.
The vast majority live in this denial until, inevitably, they get the E or U grade that they tracked on all along.
Occasionally, one does pull it out of the bag. But it still would have been wrong and unprofessional for a teacher to predict a high grade based on no evidence.
Schools and teachers have a responsibility to make accurate, evidence-based predictions. Pupils have a responsibility to work hard and take mocks seriously. Otherwise the whole system is a farce.
The women are wonderful effect is a very well observed phenomenon
I was in school in the late 90s to early 00s. It definitely felt that way back then too. The entire faculty bar the PE teachers were women and many of them didn’t even hide the fact that they disliked boys (and men). Some straight up told us to our faces. It was definitely reflected in both discipline and grades which were often very biased
It’s a shame that even after 20 years of hand wringing about boys attainment in schools, very little has changed.
There are plenty of studies that show that when teachers don’t know the gender of the person they are marking, boys perform better than when they do know the gender.
Daily Mail still pedalling ragebait and rejecting nuance. Must be a day ending in ‘y’.
It’s an insane system.
I was pretty much unable to be accepted by default by several universities as my school refused to predict above a B in some subjects as no one had ever achieved an A/A*.
UCAS was about 10 years ago now for me, but I don’t know why universities can’t just use AS results and interviews for the basis of offers?
Shit that we were told isn’t happening is happening
I remember my teacher predicted me a C in maths. This was very ironic because I’d already done 5/6 A level maths modules the year before and I was mathematically guaranteed a B even if I got Zero on my last exam. Pretty decent example of teacher bias as I wasn’t a typical well behaved student.
I remember begging my A level psychology teacher to bump my predicted grade from a C to a B and she refused, I also remember the morning of my first psychology exam when she said “I don’t think you’re going to do very well”. Well fuck you Mrs Lawrence I just got my masters degree
Mock grades heavily inform predicteds. I’d be interested to know if boys are more likely to make significant jumps from mocks (eg due to prior coasting, knuckling down when it matters)
Reminder that during COVID, the formula used to predict grades as an exam replacement had an explicit handicap that lowered the scores for boys, purely on the basis of gender. I recall one school that wrote a letter to explain it as they disagreed with it but otherwise silence.
This problem has been known about for decades, but even when it’s covered, nothing is done and it’s often framed as a problem for girls.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-31751672
> “Is it a good thing [that girls receive higher marks for the same work]? Maybe in the short run, you get a better school certificate,” said the OECD’s education director, Andreas Schleicher. “In the long run, the world is going to penalise you because the labour market doesn’t pay you for your school marks, it pays you for what you can do.”
Yup.
The system is stupid. Why is your university place decided on grades you might get and left at the mercy of someone else?
Most other countries you are given a place after achieving actual grades like America, china, Germany etc etc.
Based on the rampant grade inflation that was evident from the lockdown estimate-based grades, that conclusion should perhaps be, “teachers overestimate boys’ grades less than they overestimate girls’.
This is absolutely fine as long as girls aren’t being disadvantaged!
I taught for a few years, and the bias against boys is real. Many girl students–and certainly not all–are a bit less rambunctious, much calmer, and mature faster than their male counterparts. For obvious reasons, teachers favor the calmer, more mature students and falsely assume that they’re more intelligent than the boys. It’s a real challenge for all involved.
the system as set up is silly, universities could simply move registration back to after exam results come through for everyone and reduce the pointless uncertainty
This is really interesting, I thought it was just me. All the way through English my teacher (a woman) gave me Cs and the occasional B. Did the mock exam, which is marked by a different teacher and got an A. Sat the final exam and also got an A.
Not the exact same situation but my high school science teacher forced me to sit foundation level science exams instead of higher level. I even told her I wanted to sit higher but she just refused. This was despite me getting maximum marks in the foundation.
It eventually cost me a spot in college doing physics which was literally the only subject i was interested in. My Maths was high enough but it wasnt allowed with foundation science.
Can’t say it surprises me this is still going on. When I did A-Levels, due to flunking one AS, I ended up doing 4 A2s (basically had to resit the AS, continued the A2 in parallel on the understanding I passed said resit, but kept 4 A2s just in case I had to drop out of one after failing the resit a second time). My teachers woefully undercooked my predicted grade and the Head of Sixth, who legit had it in for me, told my dad to his face that she didnt think I was capable of doing 4 A-Levels.
Yeah she didn’t turn up to results day when I could show those 4 grade slips that showed I was more than capable.