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Comment by benjaminwootton | Hacker News Reader

For a bit of political context, last year there was a lot of controversy about people getting poor grades based on estimates, which reflected badly on the government. I suspect there was a lot of politics at play here to ensure that everyone was happy with their inflated grades.

It’s ridiculous that students couldn’t just sit their exams as usual this year.

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There was no level playing field between schools and students this year due to different students missing different amounts of school, having different capabilities to learn at home, and many other covid related factors. It does not seem fair to me that they should all sit the same exam as if they had all had similar normal schooling for the past two years.

I'm not saying I agree with the mitigations that were put in place this year and last year, but I certainly think normal exams would not have been good for students. Ideally we want people to fill the universities, the aim is not to maximize the number of people rejected.

Last year they took teacher assessments to rank students inside schools, and then mapped those ranks onto previous grades from the same school. So if previously only one person in the school got the top grade, last year only the top ranked student by teacher assessment could have got that grade, no matter how good the other students were. They’ve managed another shambles this year, by swinging to an opposite failing. The Education Secretary doesn’t seem very bright.

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