Coronavirus (COVID-19)

[Monkey Tennis]

25 minutes ago, madwullie said:

I disagree. Getting it right for every child doesn't involve completely ignoring every child and giving them the grades similar kids who have now left school got. The sqa could have interacted with schools, found out specific reasons why one particular class may have performed better this year (smarter cohort, smaller more focused group, now subject specialist in school whereas previous years the certificate classes were taken by cover etc etc.) Forced schools to regrade if the evidence didn't back up the predictions. It doesn't seem like they've even glanced at the evidence though. They could have published their methodology, consulted on the methodology - collegiately come up with some kind of better way to deal with this. They could have employed the thousands of markers to look at at least a sample of the evidence submitted, and draw further conclusions based on that.

Instead they said "This is what the results should be", didn't bother telling anyone how the process would actually work and just delete and copy pasted this year's names in. Any non-folio work done by these pupils all year, any work done by the teachers to painstakingly grade, sort them (those who did it properly) might as well just have been filed in the bin to coin a phrase and everyone could have fired movies on from August last year. 

I'm snp through the middle but I've always had issues with the way they deal with education. Roll on indy so we can vote for people that have proper education policies. Sturgeon actually said we should judge her on education. In no world is that going well for her atm 

Schools were invited to explain why a cohort may have performed better etc.  It was part of the paperwork submitted.

It's not as if no notice of estimates was taken at all in arriving at grades for pupils, so the bit about "could have fired movies on from August" isn't really true.

The methodology has been published.

This is imperfect, and I feel sorry for kids who appear to have been punished. I hope they can be helped via appeals though, especially given that plenty others have actually benefited.

[ScottishZizou]

9 hours ago, craigkillie said:

There were (and still are) only a small handful of active cases in the country, so even if folk are failing to behave themselves in pubs or elsewhere there's still a pretty low chance of getting it. Aberdeen likely just got unlucky.

Yeah I’d probably agree Aberdeen was likely unlucky. Probably statistically more likely than my insinuation that everyone else was/is lucky

[madwullie]

2 hours ago, Monkey Tennis said:

Schools were invited to explain why a cohort may have performed better etc.  It was part of the paperwork submitted.

It's not as if no notice of estimates was taken at all in arriving at grades for pupils, so the bit about "could have fired movies on from August" isn't really true.

The methodology has been published.

This is imperfect, and I feel sorry for kids who appear to have been punished. I hope they can be helped via appeals though, especially given that plenty others have actually benefited.

The methodology got published yesterday with the results. And they didn't do anything at all with the info about why classes may have performed better before blanket downgrading. But yeah, agree totally re appeals. 

Edited August 6, 2020 by madwullie

[Todd_is_God]

19 minutes ago, ScottishZizou said:

Yeah I’d probably agree Aberdeen was likely unlucky. Probably statistically more likely than my insinuation that everyone else was/is lucky

It could also be a result of Aberdeen being largely unexposed in the early days, meaning there are just more susceptible people in that area versus, say, Glasgow.

In the early days, when we were really only capturing moderately symptomatic cases and above, Aberdeen had very few cases recorded. There will undoubtably have had more cases that went undetected, but less so than the central belt.

From a purely statistical perspective, you would expect something like this to happen in Glasgow, where 1 in 5 people in Scotland live, let alone travel into.

I don't think luck has been much of a factor.

[Theroadlesstravelled]

https://www.bbc.com/news/business-53665394

This woman doesn't come off well at all in this story.

She's a lawyer yet couldn't fill in a basic screening form which very few people have issues with, and she's a lawyer who flies with EasyJet.

[hk blues]

18 hours ago, virginton said:

The personal face visor is definitely my 'no, this is going too far' moment. At least when it is used as a substitute for a face covering like in the UK, which would be sensible if you were handling a mildly corrosive acid splashing up at your face but serves next to no purpose for droplets/airborne virus particles, as a lot of them will just move in or out through the yawning space beneath the visor.

The staff in a busy pub using visors rather than masks because they're more practical to speak with and work are not enhancing the safety of themselves or others.  

The thing that gets me is it's only required on public transport, not anywhere else.  It's either effective or it's not - if it is then let's wear it at all times.   

[Dons_1988]

18 minutes ago, Theroadlesstravelled said:

https://www.bbc.com/news/business-53665394

This woman doesn't come off well at all in this story.

She's a lawyer yet couldn't fill in a basic screening form which very few people have issues with, and she's a lawyer who flies with EasyJet.

It's beyond me why this people agree to tell their story to the news. She should be hiding under a rock, suitably embarrassed.

Absolutely zero sympathy for her.

[Melanius Mullarkey]

2 minutes ago, Dons_1988 said:

It's beyond me why this people agree to tell their story to the news. She should be hiding under a rock, suitably embarrassed.

Absolutely zero sympathy for her.

"I'm a lawyer, so I'm used to form-filling and small print. But with these, it's so difficult to understand.”

Fucking hell.

[Dons_1988]

1 minute ago, Melanius Mullarkey said:

"I'm a lawyer, so I'm used to form-filling and small print. But with these, it's so difficult to understand.”

Fucking hell.

I'm not sure who she's blaming here either.

Is it Easyjet for telling her she can't fly because the Greeks will send her straight back and they'd have to take the cost of her stupidity, or is it those foreigners, with their confusing foreign forms?

In any case, it's not her fault. She's a lawyer.

[Monkey Tennis]

7 hours ago, madwullie said:

The methodology got published yesterday with the results. And they didn't do anything at all with the info about why classes may have performed better before blanket downgrading. But yeah, agree totally re appeals. 

Was the methodology, regarding refined bands and ranking not already published?  I thought it had been, but might be mistaken.  

How do you know that additional information was discarded?  I'm not saying you're wrong, but I'm not sure how you've got there.  

I am concerned by all of this, as I think there will be plenty injustice contained within a big picture that's been engineered to fit a bigger pattern.  In truth though, most of the injustice will actually favour kids, as the attainment figures that have been arrived at are still way better than is typical.  I accept, however, that that will provide no consolation whatever to those who feel they've lost out.  I also accept that even if those individuals emerge well from the appeals process, they've suffered in the meantime, and that's regrettable.

So much of the coverage is pretty hysterical though.  I'm not criticising the kids who've been quoted or have signed petitions, because they're kids and because this is obviously important stuff.  However, I struggle to see how many of them will even know their estimate grades.  Some will have learnt them, having contacted school on Tuesday.  Plenty, however, will be simply estimating what their estimate must have been, probably based entirely on a prelim.

It's all a bit of a mess, but I'm afraid that had the SQA number crunching not taken place, then 2020's results would have been absurd, and utterly devalued.  Teachers are largely responsible for the extent to which such intervention became necessary.

[Tight minge]

The thing that gets me is it's only required on public transport, not anywhere else.  It's either effective or it's not - if it is then let's wear it at all times.   

How effective is social distancing on jeepnys, trikes and UV’s? I can imagine not at all unless they are banned for now.

[resk]

Absolutely shocked that a budget airline "doesn't seem to care" about the minor tribulations of one of its customers during a global pandemic.

Clearly the BBC has ran out of people with actual legitimate grievances and is now giving airtime to those with imaginary grievances.

[madwullie]

48 minutes ago, Monkey Tennis said:

Was the methodology, regarding refined bands and ranking not already published?  I thought it had been, but might be mistaken.  

How do you know that additional information was discarded?  I'm not saying you're wrong, but I'm not sure how you've got there.  

I am concerned by all of this, as I think there will be plenty injustice contained within a big picture that's been engineered to fit a bigger pattern.  In truth though, most of the injustice will actually favour kids, as the attainment figures that have been arrived at are still way better than is typical.  I accept, however, that that will provide no consolation whatever to those who feel they've lost out.  I also accept that even if those individuals emerge well from the appeals process, they've suffered in the meantime, and that's regrettable.

So much of the coverage is pretty hysterical though.  I'm not criticising the kids who've been quoted or have signed petitions, because they're kids and because this is obviously important stuff.  However, I struggle to see how many of them will even know their estimate grades.  Some will have learnt them, having contacted school on Tuesday.  Plenty, however, will be simply estimating what their estimate must have been, probably based entirely on a prelim.

It's all a bit of a mess, but I'm afraid that had the SQA number crunching not taken place, then 2020's results would have been absurd, and utterly devalued.  Teachers are largely responsible for the extent to which such intervention became necessary.

The methology definitely wasn't published. The kept it secret until the results were released. 

I'm going by something Ross Greer(sp?) said in an interview yesterday re the information. Between him and someone else it seemed preety clear that the only thing that was really used was the teachers ranking of pupils, then that was crowbarred into the model they were wanting to end up with. 

I'm going to go and check this info just now so might be back to say I'm talking shite. 

Edit: quick scan of this https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-53580888 doesn't seem to mention anything other than the rankings and historical data being used. 

I agree with the point that the results would be meaningless, but tbh they're heading that way already with the chosen direction of travel and also that teachers need to shoulder most of the blame here, but I feel the sqa also need to take a larger share than they currently are. Even if teachers estimates had been much better, the system is still not flexible enough to deal with individual pupil cases - shoving the data into a model like this is maybe OK for other types of data, but considering the life-long impact this can have on kids, I think it's a bit non-teachery (just up, vocabulary synapses still booting up) sacrificing individuals for the overall perfect bell curve. And yeah, the appeals are free etc, but the system shouldn't be relying on appeals to recalibrate the pretty glaring issues. 

I think something that needs to be revisited now is the idea that x% have to get an A and y% a B etc. Not sure how we deal with the problem of one year being too hard or too easy, but the idea that the pupils are competing against each other and not the exam has never really sat well with me. 

Edited August 6, 2020 by madwullie

[mizfit]

"I'm a lawyer, so I'm used to form-filling and small print. But with these, it's so difficult to understand.”
Fucking hell.

The amount of times lawyers kick up when submitting an insurance claim is mental. They almost always seem to forget to read the terms and conditions of their policies.....

[hk blues]

49 minutes ago, Tight John McVeigh is a tit said:

 

How effective is social distancing on jeepnys, trikes and UV’s? I can imagine not at all unless they are banned for now.

 

For jeepneys, they are running at half-capacity with plastic partitions between each passenger.  Trikes are one person/family group only.  Taxis are limited to 2 passengers - one in the back and one up front with a partition between them and the driver.   The current trend is to get all of those outdated modes of transport off the roads permanently so the police are clamping down hence the rules are being followed relatively strictly, at least in my area.  

[Melanius Mullarkey]

11 minutes ago, mizfit said:

 

The amount of times lawyers kick up when submitting an insurance claim is mental. They almost always seem to forget to read the terms and conditions of their policies.....

 

She’ll probably try to sue EasyJet and Greece but end up suing herself by accident. 

[Fife Saint]

She’ll probably try to sue EasyJet and Greece but end up suing herself by accident. 

Is she a successful lawyer?

[Tight minge]

For jeepneys, they are running at half-capacity with plastic partitions between each passenger.  Trikes are one person/family group only.  Taxis are limited to 2 passengers - one in the back and one up front with a partition between them and the driver.   The current trend is to get all of those outdated modes of transport off the roads permanently so the police are clamping down hence the rules are being followed relatively strictly, at least in my area.  

Kind of thought this might be an ’opportunity’ to act on much of these transport methods as at times they contribute massively to the congestion and pollution. However, with it being a major and sometimes sole source of income for many families I could imagine things being widely ignored.

Sounds like being in the perspex business over there would be a good earner.

Manila, Cavite and Laguna back into lockdown yesterday.

Stay safe

[hk blues]

8 minutes ago, Tight John McVeigh is a tit said:

 

Kind of thought this might be an ’opportunity’ to act on much of these transport methods as at times they contribute massively to the congestion and pollution. However, with it being a major and sometimes sole source of income for many families I could imagine things being widely ignored.

Sounds like being in the perspex business over there would be a good earner.

Manila, Cavite and Laguna back into lockdown yesterday.

Stay safe

 

Whilst some inroads have been made in terms of improving the inner city buses, there are few and far between so the jeepneys/trikes are still an essential service for the poorer people to get around.  So, until they find a way to replace them, the jeepneys are going to be around.  I joked (half) to my wife that now they have squeezed as much as they can out of the jeepney drivers, the next source of revenue is from the sale of visors.

I am firmly of the view here that the strategy is to do what they can to keep the poor poor in order to ensure they are too busy worrying where the next meal is coming from to think about how they can make the place work better for everyone.  

[EdinburghPar1975]

Not really surprised about the Aberdeen lockdown. Unfortunately the behaviour of some folks in pubs seems to be that it was ok to just act normally.

I can only go with what i've seen down here but people seem to start of with the best of intentions and then unsurprisingly after a few drinks the distancing goes out the window (so to speak!). I agree its difficult for the staff to try and ensure folks stick to the rules but there does seem to be a group of pubs/ restaurants that are happy to have folks back in and will just turn the other way.

Hopefully the Aberdeen lockdown is just for the 7 days and can show how things can be managed going forward.