A Level results.

[Top of the JES]

Due out on Thursday, a massive day for anyone with children waiting results at the best of times.

Throughout the last two years my daughter has worked really hard and had been consistantly predicted to get A,A,A* in the Three subjects she needs to go to Uni in September - she needs 3 A's to get her place. It was a blow to her and her friends when A level exams were cancelled (understandibly) because of lockdown, but we were reassured that results would be based on coursework and teachers evaluations. Now we are told that many results have been marked down in England as they were in Scotland as thet are unrepresentative of previous years.

I would be gutted for my daughter or any of her friends if they are denied the chance to go to Uni because someone who has never met them decides that her teachers judgement isn't correct or the school they attend hasn't performed well enough in the past for their reccomended grades to stand, which it seems is the criteria.

I hope that my daughter and her friends will be OK and that everyone out there who has worked so hard are not penalised by the goverment for not being able to take their final exams. It's a really stressfull time for them at the moment......not to mention the parents!

[Clive Evans]

Government has made 11th hour decision, to allow mock results to be used. I hope all goes well. " A" levels are hard and require a lot of work. In my opinion better to be kind than too hard. It is a stressful time for people at such a young age. Also I hope the Media don't take the line that the Government has been far too soft. The last few months have been truly awful and I am not too optimistic about the next few months either.

[Beradogs]

Due out on Thursday, a massive day for anyone with children waiting results at the best of times.

Throughout the last two years my daughter has worked really hard and had been consistantly predicted to get A,A,A* in the Three subjects she needs to go to Uni in September - she needs 3 A's to get her place. It was a blow to her and her friends when A level exams were cancelled (understandibly) because of lockdown, but we were reassured that results would be based on coursework and teachers evaluations. Now we are told that many results have been marked down in England as they were in Scotland as thet are unrepresentative of previous years.

I would be gutted for my daughter or any of her friends if they are denied the chance to go to Uni because someone who has never met them decides that her teachers judgement isn't correct or the school they attend hasn't performed well enough in the past for their reccomended grades to stand, which it seems is the criteria.

I hope that my daughter and her friends will be OK and that everyone out there who has worked so hard are not penalised by the goverment for not being able to take their final exams. It's a really stressfull time for them at the moment......not to mention the parents!

Wouldn’t bother with Uni. Waste of time. Get a trade like plumbing.

[Top of the JES]

Due out on Thursday, a massive day for anyone with children waiting results at the best of times.

Throughout the last two years my daughter has worked really hard and had been consistantly predicted to get A,A,A* in the Three subjects she needs to go to Uni in September - she needs 3 A's to get her place. It was a blow to her and her friends when A level exams were cancelled (understandibly) because of lockdown, but we were reassured that results would be based on coursework and teachers evaluations. Now we are told that many results have been marked down in England as they were in Scotland as thet are unrepresentative of previous years.

I would be gutted for my daughter or any of her friends if they are denied the chance to go to Uni because someone who has never met them decides that her teachers judgement isn't correct or the school they attend hasn't performed well enough in the past for their reccomended grades to stand, which it seems is the criteria.

I hope that my daughter and her friends will be OK and that everyone out there who has worked so hard are not penalised by the goverment for not being able to take their final exams. It's a really stressfull time for them at the moment......not to mention the parents!

Wouldn’t bother with Uni. Waste of time. Get a trade like plumbing.

Thanks, but I don't think plumbing is going to cut it for my daughter who has her hopes set on a career in bio chemistry.

[Top of the JES]

Government has made 11th hour decision, to allow mock results to be used. I hope all goes well. " A" levels are hard and require a lot of work. In my opinion better to be kind than too hard. It is a stressful time for people at such a young age. Also I hope the Media don't take the line that the Government has been far too soft. The last few months have been truly awful and I am not too optimistic about the next few months either.

Thanks, Thats better news then in so much she got 2 of the 3 A's she needs in her mocks. But the one she has to get in Chemistry is still up in the air as her mock was cancelled due to teachers being off sick. If they go on her course work and previous tests she should get the A she needs, but tense wait now as the grade will have been teacher assessed and gone for review.

She'll find out through clearing at 8:00am tomorrow if she has been accepted by her first choice Uni, results at 10:00 am

[Disoriented]

Due out on Thursday, a massive day for anyone with children waiting results at the best of times.

Throughout the last two years my daughter has worked really hard and had been consistantly predicted to get A,A,A* in the Three subjects she needs to go to Uni in September - she needs 3 A's to get her place. It was a blow to her and her friends when A level exams were cancelled (understandibly) because of lockdown, but we were reassured that results would be based on coursework and teachers evaluations. Now we are told that many results have been marked down in England as they were in Scotland as thet are unrepresentative of previous years.

I would be gutted for my daughter or any of her friends if they are denied the chance to go to Uni because someone who has never met them decides that her teachers judgement isn't correct or the school they attend hasn't performed well enough in the past for their reccomended grades to stand, which it seems is the criteria.

I hope that my daughter and her friends will be OK and that everyone out there who has worked so hard are not penalised by the goverment for not being able to take their final exams. It's a really stressfull time for them at the moment......not to mention the parents!

Good luck to your daughter, fella. I hope she gets what she deserves which from what you have said, is top grades.

Hope she is not disappointed.

[Top of the JES]

Due out on Thursday, a massive day for anyone with children waiting results at the best of times.

Throughout the last two years my daughter has worked really hard and had been consistantly predicted to get A,A,A* in the Three subjects she needs to go to Uni in September - she needs 3 A's to get her place. It was a blow to her and her friends when A level exams were cancelled (understandibly) because of lockdown, but we were reassured that results would be based on coursework and teachers evaluations. Now we are told that many results have been marked down in England as they were in Scotland as thet are unrepresentative of previous years.

I would be gutted for my daughter or any of her friends if they are denied the chance to go to Uni because someone who has never met them decides that her teachers judgement isn't correct or the school they attend hasn't performed well enough in the past for their reccomended grades to stand, which it seems is the criteria.

I hope that my daughter and her friends will be OK and that everyone out there who has worked so hard are not penalised by the goverment for not being able to take their final exams. It's a really stressfull time for them at the moment......not to mention the parents!

Good luck to your daughter, fella. I hope she gets what she deserves which from what you have said, is top grades.

Hope she is not disappointed.

Thank You.

[Rich Tea Wellin]

I'm glad it didnt happen to me at GCSE and A Level. think my mocks and predicted grades were all about 3 grades under what I actually ended up getting. Exams are easy.

[Top of the JES]

Following on from my original post at the top of this thread.

Results can't be picked up until later but my daughter received an email from her Uni at one minute past Eight this morning congratulating her on her results and directing her to a welcome site, double checked with UCAS and her place at Her Uni of choice is secured

Very relieved and happy that her hard work has been rewarded, feel for kids who might be affected by results being down graded.

[Thor]

Nice one Top of, well done to your daughter.

[BIGRON]

Good luck to all youngsters with thier results , i had to leave school with no grades at 15 to get a job to help mum bring up 3 kids as the old man had fooked off with some bint , mum's still going along at 91 years old

[Mistadobalina]

Following on from my original post at the top of this thread.

Results can't be picked up until later but my daughter received an email from her Uni at one minute past Eight this morning congratulating her on her results and directing her to a welcome site, double checked with UCAS and her place at Her Uni of choice is secured

Very relieved and happy that her hard work has been rewarded, feel for kids who might be affected by results being down graded.

Congrats, given all that's going on with the results the sense of relief must be massive.

[Top of the JES]

OK thanks for the kind comments and the sense of relief at getting that Uni place is palpable.

We just got back from picking up daughters results. Overall what we expected EPQ downgraded from A* to A she can live with that but we are appealing against her Chemistry Grade, Work this one out - shows how random the grading is:-

Her mock result A*. Teachers recommendation A*. Actual Grade B


She needs at least an A to get a scholarship grant from her Uni so of course we will appeal.

We spoke to one of the teachers this morning who said some of the Grades being given are completely crazy and totally random some of the kids we saw were visibly upset.

[Rich Tea Wellin]

Surprise surprise that incompetence reigns at every level in this country.

Although, I'd personally console all of the people crying with the fact that grades and even uni degrees dont really stop you doing anything if you really want to do it in life.

[Top of the JES]

Not any consolation to the boy we spoke to this morning who needed an A in Maths to get to Uni and was downgraded from A* to B. Nice lad who worked really hard will appeal but may lose out on the Uni of his choice. Not sure your life lesson would hold any water given the current circumstances.

[Long slender neck]

Someone enlighten me as to why they are downgrading people?

[Rich Tea Wellin]

Not any consolation to the boy we spoke to this morning who needed an A in Maths to get to Uni and was downgraded from A* to B. Nice lad who worked really hard will appeal but may lose out on the Uni of his choice. Not sure your life lesson would hold any water given the current circumstances.

Not having a degree in the next few years wont stop you doing anything. And with a recession that will probably get worse, i'm not sure that a Maths degree will get you far in JD sports any ways.

I'm being flippant. It's a shame that people who have worked hard are being screwed by the system. but when I was that age I thought that qualifications were the be all and end all. I've gone past pretty much everyone in my department and 99% of them have degrees.

[Rich Tea Wellin]

Someone enlighten me as to why they are downgrading people?

Teachers are biased, i guess?

[PoliticOs]

Surprise surprise that incompetence reigns at every level in this country.

Although, I'd personally console all of the people crying with the fact that grades and even uni degrees dont really stop you doing anything if you really want to do it in life.

I agree with the sentiment! But not sure its so true anymore. These kids are entering a terribly difficult workforce and very few places accept unsolicited applications or non-application form CV's, handed in etc. Now it's all 'go online and fill in the form' and if a big chunk of that is vacant or deemed poor in education by some recruiter they get ignored. I do agree with you in general though, but think it's more appropriate for our generations, not so much the kids now. Bless em. I worked with a company recently looking for a designer with a first from at least one of the top 10 art/illustration Uni's in the country, plus 3 years work experience...18k p.a. It's so tough for them.

Great stuff Top of. You must be super proud.

[aylesburyos]

Good luck to all youngsters with thier results , i had to leave school with no grades at 15 to get a job to help mum bring up 3 kids as the old man had fooked off with some bint , mum's still going along at 91 years old

Well done Big Ron looking after your family especially your Mum

[Top of the JES]

Surprise surprise that incompetence reigns at every level in this country.

Although, I'd personally console all of the people crying with the fact that grades and even uni degrees dont really stop you doing anything if you really want to do it in life.

I agree with the sentiment! But not sure its so true anymore. These kids are entering a terribly difficult workforce and very few places accept unsolicited applications or non-application form CV's, handed in etc. Now it's all 'go online and fill in the form' and if a big chunk of that is vacant or deemed poor in education by some recruiter they get ignored. I do agree with you in general though, but think it's more appropriate for our generations, not so much the kids now. Bless em. I worked with a company recently looking for a designer with a first from at least one of the top 10 art/illustration Uni's in the country, plus 3 years work experience...18k p.a. It's so tough for them.

Great stuff Top of. You must be super proud.

Main objective was for her to get to the Uni of her choice so I sure am proud. Thanks PoliticOs.

[Top of the JES]

Someone enlighten me as to why they are downgrading people?

So the idea originally was for teachers to grade their pupils. Then decided it would be done externally taking into account teachers gradings then to make it "fair" Mock A level results and teachers grades would be used to come to a final grading.

It's a shambles though because lots of A & A* pupils are being down graded. They are apparently using Algorythyms to determine final grades, it's not working very well from what we can see.

[Rich Tea Wellin]

Surprise surprise that incompetence reigns at every level in this country.

Although, I'd personally console all of the people crying with the fact that grades and even uni degrees dont really stop you doing anything if you really want to do it in life.

I agree with the sentiment! But not sure its so true anymore. These kids are entering a terribly difficult workforce and very few places accept unsolicited applications or non-application form CV's, handed in etc. Now it's all 'go online and fill in the form' and if a big chunk of that is vacant or deemed poor in education by some recruiter they get ignored. I do agree with you in general though, but think it's more appropriate for our generations, not so much the kids now. Bless em. I worked with a company recently looking for a designer with a first from at least one of the top 10 art/illustration Uni's in the country, plus 3 years work experience...18k p.a. It's so tough for them.

Great stuff Top of. You must be super proud.

Yeah, I think you are right. My sister just finished uni and cant get anything without experience.

But i'm not convinced it was much different 15 years ago when i started my career. I was so frustrated that everywhere was looking for experience and i didnt have any. I think ultimately, you just need someone to give you a chance and then build on that with hard work.

I think where I'm mainly coming from is that the work people do is so diverse compared to even 10 years ago. There's also many more ways of learning the skills you need than a degree. For example, I know many employers dont even look at qualifications for certain techy jobs, it's all just the skill base. Data scientists is where a lot of people think the need will be in the coming years. So people are doing online courses, coding at home, doing their own analysis and building things like machine learning tools off of free software. Ultimately, if you spend 3 years doing that and can demonstrate that I dont think people necessarily care about your qualifications.

[Top of the JES]

Surprise surprise that incompetence reigns at every level in this country.

Although, I'd personally console all of the people crying with the fact that grades and even uni degrees dont really stop you doing anything if you really want to do it in life.

I agree with the sentiment! But not sure its so true anymore. These kids are entering a terribly difficult workforce and very few places accept unsolicited applications or non-application form CV's, handed in etc. Now it's all 'go online and fill in the form' and if a big chunk of that is vacant or deemed poor in education by some recruiter they get ignored. I do agree with you in general though, but think it's more appropriate for our generations, not so much the kids now. Bless em. I worked with a company recently looking for a designer with a first from at least one of the top 10 art/illustration Uni's in the country, plus 3 years work experience...18k p.a. It's so tough for them.

Great stuff Top of. You must be super proud.

Yeah, I think you are right. My sister just finished uni and cant get anything without experience.

But i'm not convinced it was much different 15 years ago when i started my career. I was so frustrated that everywhere was looking for experience and i didnt have any. I think ultimately, you just need someone to give you a chance and then build on that with hard work.

I think where I'm mainly coming from is that the work people do is so diverse compared to even 10 years ago. There's also many more ways of learning the skills you need than a degree. For example, I know many employers dont even look at qualifications for certain techy jobs, it's all just the skill base. Data scientists is where a lot of people think the need will be in the coming years. So people are doing online courses, coding at home, doing their own analysis and building things like machine learning tools off of free software. Ultimately, if you spend 3 years doing that and can demonstrate that I dont think people necessarily care about your qualifications.

The employment ratio for people leaving the Uni my daughter is heading to is over 70%, They actively seek to place graduates with a pool of companies with who they have agreements, Internships etc. My daughter is looking at a Masters in Bio science and last year the Uni placed 93% of Science graduates. It's four years down the road so hopefully things then will be better than they are now.

In some industries qualifications mean nothing, my old company fired all it's 40 and 50 year old experienced sales people and hired graduates all of who were gone within 18 months, dispite having lots of qualifications they had no people skills or work ethic and were basically a disaster.

However my advice is to take an education every time

[Long slender neck]

Someone enlighten me as to why they are downgrading people?

So the idea originally was for teachers to grade their pupils. Then decided it would be done externally taking into account teachers gradings then to make it "fair" Mock A level results and teachers grades would be used to come to a final grading.

It's a shambles though because lots of A & A* pupils are being down graded. They are apparently using Algorythyms to determine final grades, it's not working very well from what we can see.

Algorithm- yeah right! I bet its a civil servant with a spreadsheet.