Oor Nicola Sturgeon thread.

[BawWatchin]

Just now, DeeTillEhDeh said:

28 minutes ago, Detournement said:

We'll see what happens but the late reversal strikes me as an attempt to placate the Greens/LDs to save Swinney's job. 
I have no doubt England will be a shitshow as well.

And Wales.

And N. Ireland.

And everywhere else in the world.

But I bet there isn't anywhere near as many crumbling snowflakes demanding a complete overhaul of Government.

[D Angelo Barksdale]

1 hour ago, Billy Jean King said:

Let the moaning little shits sit an exam in the Autumn and see their reaction.

This, but make the exams harder than usual.

[aaa]

40 minutes ago, Elric said:

Didn't take long for the bait to be taken.  Tell us exactly what the incompetents I mentioned have done for the good of the country?

Will not be long before the rest of the gang drop in.

 your a big bad master baiter

[O'Kelly Isley III]

Impressive 180 from the bootlickers here!

Darts Forum for this pish.

[BFTD]

How was your lockdown, Malky?

[renton]

24 minutes ago, MixuFruit said:

telt ye's

Swinney is probably a dour, able technician of a politician, but seems to lack the foresight and imagination to really game out in his head how these things are gonna go. I wonder if he might find himself contemplating retirement at some point soon.

The first thing  you would've done in this situation is surely to have asked the SQA what they were planning on doing, then get them to run their algorithm using a representative sample of predicted grades only from previous years (they surely keep records). Then they could have started to make a decision as to how and where the system required tweaking to give the correct focus between not fucking over individuals and maintaining the system credibility.

[BawWatchin]

11 minutes ago, MixuFruit said:

Often when they've done something daft it feels like they never ran it by a normal person who could instantly blurt out "don't do that it's stupid".

They do. But when that person says "don't do that it's stupid". They have nothing better to put forward. Sometimes a stupid idea is still the smartest idea that is realistically available.

[NotThePars]

43 minutes ago, MixuFruit said:

telt ye's

Right on cue as well a tedious lazy Malky alias turns up. Clearest evidence yet that it's an indy psyop run by Baw Watchin or somedy.

[renton]

24 minutes ago, MixuFruit said:

Even the fact they're committing to reviewing folk marked down demonstrates he has lost influence since the P1 testing stuff. I sometimes wonder if the SNP don't focus group stuff because they assume 40-odd % of folk will give negative feedback regardless of what it is they're proposing.

Often when they've done something daft it feels like they never ran it by a normal person who could instantly blurt out "don't do that it's stupid".

That's part of it, but some of it comes from the personalities involved. Like the P1 testing. I didnt agree with it, even as I could see the rationale: Clearly the work of a conservative mind, taking a short term solution to a problem rather than a holistic view. A type of solution that just seemed entirely at odds with the kind of system the CfE was meant to be getting away from.

Partly the problem I guess is that beyond tax and spend, there are any number of departments that require long term solutions that have scant political capital for incumbents and therefore less incentive to put in place something that might not bear fruit for sometime in lieu of sticking plaster solutions in the name of being seen to have done something. That's an age old issue with all democracies though , I guess.

[mizfit]

Let the moaning little shits sit an exam in the Autumn and see their reaction.

Tbh I’m surprised they didn’t offer pupils the opportunity to sit exams when the virus infection rate was sufficiently low, or to take the results offered based on their past performances and the schools historic data.

[SandyCromarty]

5 hours ago, BawWatchin said:

A political party that wants to retain power. Self-serving charlatans indeed. They should step aside and allow some other party that a very small minority voted for to take their place. I'm sure they won't serve themselves.

 

On a serious note. Well done to Nicola Sturgeon and John Swinney for holding their hands up and taking full responsibility for the systematic imperfections in the SQA's calculation models.

Boris is already coming up to Scotland to hide in a fridge somewhere for a couple of weeks while it all kicks off down in England. If only we had such true leadership in Scotland.

The SNP have 61 MSP's, 56 of those were duly elected, (first past the post), and the remaining 5 are Regional/List MSP'S.

The tories have 31 MSP's of that number only 8 were duly elected, (first past the post). and the remaining 23 are List/regional MSP's.

Kinda tells a story.

And I bet that SNP figure will greatly increase next year.

[Mark Connolly]

9 minutes ago, MixuFruit said:

Not mad keen on the idea list MSPs are lower class entities tbh. 

Michelle Ballantyne, Murdo Fraser, James Kelly, Johann Lamont, Richard Leonard, Adam Tomkins.

[Mark Connolly]

1 minute ago, MixuFruit said:

Andy Wightman, Alison Johnstone, Mark Ruskell, John Ginnie, Patrick Harvie

TBH I think we are making the same point here!

[mizfit]

New approach to this being unveiled on Tuesday.


All children given A’s and placements at St. Andrews University or Sturgeon must condemn imo.

Wasn’t far off...

[vikingTON]

An absolutely fucking ridiculous 'buckle under pressure to keep the vote share up' volte-face, while trashes both the SQA and the credibility of the qualifications as collateral damage.

Not that they're actually going to restore much if any political capital from this move either. They cannot possibly pretend that at least the general outline of the grades wasn't on Swinney's desk before last week; if you want to throw out the grades and have a rethink then you do it before they are published in the public domain. A complete failure of political craft and a complete failure of actual governance.

[mizfit]

Next year we’ll see a drop and then Labour, the tories and the Lib Dem’s will claim that the drop is unacceptable.

[The Master]

I can't help but feel this has taken things too far the other way. When you look at the historic averages across all metrics, the estimated grades have seen every single one shoot right up. And the reason it appeared that pupils from the most deprived areas were hit hardest was because their average went up the most (~20 percentage points). 

Obviously the moderation was going to result in high-performing pupils being downgraded, but that's what appeals are for.  And I say this as someone who might well have been hit by an unfair downgrade because of the school I went to.

The problem now is that thousands of pupils will be leaving school with grades they don't deserve because their teachers were under pressure to ensure the school performed well. How are universities and employers supposed to know who has grades that genuinely reflect their ability? 

I hope I'm wrong, but I get the sense this is going to be the proverbial "ticking time bomb" of university drop-outs in the coming year. 

Edited August 11, 2020 by The Master

[NotThePars]

Sturgeon might as well just give everyone their best predictive grades and coast off the poll boost next year from all the first time voters. Hopefully by the time the weans realise they’ve been had we will have independence and it’ll be someone else’s problem.

[sparky88]

Imagine failing this year. 

[HTG]

3 minutes ago, The Master said:

I can't help but feel this has taken things too far the other way. When you look at the historic averages across all metrics, the estimated grades have seen every single one shoot right up. And the reason it appeared that pupils from the most deprived areas were hit hardest was because their average went up the most (~20 percentage points). 

Obviously the moderation was going to result in high-performing pupils being downgraded, but that's what appeals are for.  And I say this as someone who might well have been hit by an unfair downgrade because of the school I went to.

The problem now is that thousands of pupils will be leaving school with grades they don't deserve because their teachers were under pressure to ensure the school performed well. How are universities and employers supposed to know who has grades that genuinely reflect their ability? 

I hope I'm wrong, but I get the sense this is going to be the proverbial "ticking time bomb" of university drop-outs in the coming year. 

What does a middle option look like though? And how long would it take to articulate a middle option and then act on it? There's no easy way out of this. The moderation to deal with significant amounts of over-estimating by teachers has caused uproar. The removal of moderation creates a situation which is unrealistic. Moderating at individual level without the support of a structured examination process within the current delivery model is not feasible. 

The outcome is that the Scottish Govt has opted not to die on this particular hill. I doubt if the infrastructure to deal with 100k+ appeals exists - certainly not within the window available before university terms begin.

It'll be interesting to see whether there is time for the rest of the UK to change tack before their results come out. I suspect not so if they've used the same approach, they may choose to not issue the results at all. 

The predictions are way too optimistic. The moderation algorithm is too blunt an instrument. There is no middle approach to managing the volume without exams. Clusterfuck from all sides.