DeeTillEhDeh

The SQA have not come out of this with any credibility - they sat on the estimates for almost 2 months before telling Swinney - they should have acted in June and did nothing. Performance based pay is virtually unworkable - results vary depending on the cohort you have in front of you - in any case it is not always the same teachers that take the courses - some teachers will also have far more senior classes than junior classes - some teachers don't have any senior exam classes as they teach predominantly BGE or other courses such as NPAs - how do you work that out?

Bumping back to schools in June is what should have happened. But some LAs should be bloody embarrassed that they let schools submit some of these estimates. They all had the historic data - if there was grade inflation it should have been dealt with by the relevant LA well before the 28 May deadline. SQA also asked some LAs to pilot the process - Dundee was one of those councils - if they had an issue with estimates at that point (we had to submit by 20 May) then they did not raise this with thd LA or with the schools - yet last week we found that some of our pupils had been doubly penalised - estimate reduced after consultation with the LA and then reduced again by SQA - it was as if SQA has taken no account of this - despite paperwork informing them that a course had had its estimates adjusted downwards. I know Swinney has taken a lot of flak over this but this would have happened no matter the political party in charge. For me it is symptomatic of the worst of SQA - like an oil tanker that can't change direction it ploughed on regardless of the facts staring it in the face.

You look at grade averages, grade trends and estimate data - it's quite clear that they did not do this. If they were predicting an average grade way above anything achieved in the previous 3 years then could be identified as potentially overestimating - at that point they should have been then asked to review or provide further justification fir their estimates. It's how Dundee adjusted its estimates - they identified where they thought estimates were under or over and asked schools to go back and review them. They even developed a tool to analyse the data - it was really easy to use as a PT - you had a good idea if you were under or over-estimating.

Thatcher wouldn't have apologised for anything.

I personally think that some LAs have taken the absolute piss with their estimates - the advice given by some has encouraged grade inflation. One also has to seriously question the lack of quality assurance to allow these estimates to be submitted. Those LAs who did things by the book - adjusting estimates before they were submitted by SQA - should never have been treated the same as those who had clearly inflated estimates. Why the hell did SQA sit on the estimates instead of flagging the issues at the start of June? They had more than enough time to challenge the more ridiculous estimates.

Those at SQA who withheld the information until 4 days before the exam results need to take some of the blame - they knew for almost 7 weeks yet didn't think it appropriate to flag to the Scottish Government. This should have been dealt with in June - LAs who were complicit in the production of inflated grades shouid have been told in no uncertain terms to go back and review their estimates. Next year the results will be interesting - it will be clear which LAs gamed it this year and who played it by the book.

And Wales.

Let it go. I'll get my coat.

So Kincy really isn't the worst poster then? [emoji6]

This must be an alternate reality - but you are agreeing with VT.

SQA need to take some of the blame - they sat on the estimates for 2 months and did f**k all to get those who had submitted inflated estimates to review them. They had the estimates from 28 May - all submitted electronically - still had plenty of time to send them back.

Why? It's SQA's fault - they sat on the estimates for 2 months and did f**k all to get those who had submitted inflated estimates to review them. They had the estimates from 28 May - all submitted electronically - still had plenty of time to send them back.

Token fine - did not expect anything else.

Jerry loved the pub too much to be a consistently good player.

Have to agree with this. The only reason for taking action would be if the players had ignored a club directive to not go to pubs - as far as I am aware that is not the case.