[bengillies]

> Which can be explained by teachers assessments being too optimistic

This can also be explained by teachers assessments being an accurate representation of students ability, but students traditionally not faring as well in exams as their ability would suggest due to exam taking being an additional unrelated skill.

fwiw though, you only need to look at some of the outliers to see that the algorithm failed. It's all very well to say that it produced a consistent result in general, but each result specifically applies to an individual person so needs to be fair to each person as well as in general.

[bengillies]

Whatever algorithm used though the truth is that qualifications achieved this year are not directly comparable to qualifications achieved in other years due to the lack of exams.

While nobody's fault, imho we'd have been much served by admitting that they're not comparable and doing something else (e.g. add an extra qualifier to the grade or something) than by trying to make them comparable and obviously and predictably failing at it.

[pbhjpbhj]

Not really, predicted grades have exam taking ability built in. The predicted grade is the assessment of how the student will perform in the exam. Coursework that was completed was already marked and the component of that set normally.

[tonyedgecombe]

> fwiw though, you only need to look at some of the outliers to see that the algorithm failed.

I'm not arguing it's perfect, I'm just saying what we have now is worse in the aggregate. If you inflate so many grades then the grades become meaningless. You have devalued the work of the high achieving students.