Gavin Williamson

He's made a clear attempt at blackmail with this photo today. Note the whip and the red book in the foreground reminding Johnson and co that he used to be chief whip and has a lot of dirt on them he can share if they sack him. He loves a good leak does Williamson.

 

This is a better option for the students, but still not the most accurate solution. Surely using the mock results would have been more realistic.

 

Teacher estimated grade accuracy is also brought into question, as they are apparently 12% higher at A-level and 9% higher at GCSE than last year's actual results. Does most students mock to finals grades vary by that much? Genuine question by the way.

 

In my opinion vast majority of pupils' scores do show a rise from mocks to their actual exams.

Very often they are used to find the gaps and then you spend remaining time plugging those gaps in their attainment. We would start doing boosters etc after school to help as well - also set online tasks etc.

My daughter took her mock in the December of 2017 and scored a 4 in her higher math's paper - her final grade in May 2018 was a 7.

 

Can't answer for everyone but in my day no bugger took mocks seriously. We knew they carried no weight so hardly knuckled down and revised when we could be outside playing football. Different kettle of fish when it came to final exams.

 

Think that's still the case - more like a practice match than an actual game

 

There was a teacher on the radio the other day who explained very eloquently why that's the case. He said that many years you think there are a number of pupils who might get an A* on the exam because there's no question that they can perform at that level. When the exams come around, a few of them won't - maybe they didn't revise enough, maybe they were having a bad day, or maybe the wrong questions come up. Two of them might get their A*, and two might have to be content with an A. But ahead of time you've got no idea which ones will just fall short, so you have no option but to predict that they'll all get the mark of which you think they're capable.

It does re-raise the question about whether exams are the best way of measuring capability in the first place, but that's another debate!

 

Its a long time ago now, but one of the lads at school broke his wrist the week before the O Levels and couldn't take any exams at all. As you say, illness, injury, personal circumstances, weather and even just hormones and allergies can combine to reduce a pupils performance from optimal. Rarely pupils drop lucky with the questions and exceed expectations too.

 

Dead man walking. The only reason he is still has a job is to act as a human shield for Johnson.

 

Agree with this.
I always think my family is a great example of why no system is perfect.
My Gran was recognised locally as very intelligent and gifted at school but left with awful qualifications. Her course work etc was fantastic but she always fell apart at exams. Where myself I did naff all in Senior school and literally did the least amount possible but came out with all high scoring O levels even though I left in the November and only went back for exams and representative sports.

 

At school my maths teacher, who was brilliant btw, actively told all of us not to revise for mocks so that he could make an assessment of where we were at the time then use the rest of the year to focus on our weak areas. We were top set and most of us got A’s so don’t know if that approach would work with less able kids but it worked for us.

 

There is another possibility. If you look at the list of candidates, Williamson still might be the best man for the job - imagine Francois, Grayling, Fabricant, Chope, Cash, etc as Minister for Education...

 

This what you get when a cabinet position is used as a thank you for supporting Brexit.
No marks in positions of influence

 

Or the 3rd option where they believe that they can get away with literally anything.

I offer the fact that they've just closed Public Health England (with the blame for the govt's handling of Covid) and handed it over to a millionaire mate who's failed at Track and Trace once already. They don't care what we think - they believe that we'll believe anything they tell us; so long as they keep promising to get Brexit done it'll keep enough people in tow.

 

She was also fired from Talk Talk after a data breach cost them £60m and her Tory MP husband is a keen proponent of privatising the NHS.

 

She's also on the board for horse racing, why did Cheltenham go ahead again?

 

Isn't Matt Hancock the MP for West Sussex (including Newmarket) and in receipt of numerous donations from the horse racing industry?

Like this one:
Name of donor: Tattersalls Ltd
Address of donor: Terrace House, 125 High Street, Newmarket CB8 9BT
Amount of donation, or nature and value if donation in kind: £10,000
Date received: 25 November 2019
Date accepted: 25 November 2019
Donor status: company, registration 00791113
(Registered 06 January 2020; updated 15 July 2020)

So *why* did Cheltenham go ahead?

 

And folk will either choose to ignore this or accept it.