Coronavirus (COVID-19)

[Sergeant Wilson]

45 minutes ago, Billy Jean King said:

There is a suggestion it's linked via a "gathering " to the Low Moss prison outbreak. Not a thing to do with the school despite the headline.

At my sons school today they held the traditional 1st year parade. The newbies are paraded through the school by pipers. Good to see they are keeping it as normal as possible.

Did you put chalk stripes on their backs and throw their bags on to the flat roof?

Edited August 12, 2020 by Sergeant Wilson

[Billy Jean King]

Did you put chalk stripes on the backs and throw their bags on to the flat roof?

Eh naw, stranger danger and all that.

[Musketeer Gripweed]

52 minutes ago, Billy Jean King said:

There is a suggestion it's linked via a "gathering " to the Low Moss prison outbreak. Not a thing to do with the school despite the headline.
 

Curtain twitcher type post...

Funny you should say that. Local shop tonight, prison warden, bold as brass in without a face covering. For some reason, I wasn't surprised either.

[Gaz]

1 hour ago, Billy Jean King said:

At my sons school today they held the traditional 1st year parade. The newbies are paraded through the school by pipers. Good to see they are keeping it as normal as possible.

Did they go scrumping for apples at break?

[Miguel Sanchez]

1 hour ago, Billy Jean King said:

At my sons school today they held the traditional 1st year parade. The newbies are paraded through the school by pipers. Good to see they are keeping it as normal as possible.

[Salvo Montalbano]

I'm probably missing something, but why weren't estimates 100% accurate?

Compared to the "algorithm" results. In our subject they downgraded only a handful of pupils because we went through them and tried as best as possible to be honest and realistic while positive. We also didn't feel that we could give high estimates for pupils who probably would have went on to do well but we didn't have evidence for (people who bombed the prelim but had subsequently pulled their socks up in class or who had got a tutor or who had been doing well when working through lots of past papers during Easter or whatever). Across the school we weren't afraid to give D and F estimates where they were justifed. I think our estimates compared to the actual exams are usually around 80-90 % accurate (and of course while some people you expect to pass well totally bomb, you also get a fair few who perform better than expected) so you will never get 100 % accuracy. Our estimated number of A-C students at Higher in my subject was only slightly higher (maybe 2-3 %) than the 5 year average (and that was a wee bit harsh as I had a good class this year) whereas it looks like some schools were putting in estimates that suggeated their number of A-C students in a subject was going to jump up by 15-20% which is clearly a nonsense. We are now in a situation where we are ruing the time and energy spent trying to make the estimates honest and realistic and wish we'd just stuck everyone down for what they potentially could have got if every single thing went for them and they got lucky with the questions and they had a private tutor and they felt so good going into the hall they were practically floating.

[Bert Raccoon]

1 hour ago, Billy Jean King said:

At my sons school today they held the traditional 1st year parade. The newbies are paraded through the school by pipers. Good to see they are keeping it as normal as possible.

Lucky them, all we got was a kicking.

[Mark Connolly]

9 minutes ago, Bert Raccoon said:

Lucky them, all we got was a kicking.

I think this is the posh school way of identifying the new kids to the others in preparation for said kicking.

[VladimirMooc]

11 minutes ago, Salvo Montalbano said:

3 hours ago, printer said:

I'm probably missing something, but why weren't estimates 100% accurate?

Compared to the "algorithm" results. In our subject they downgraded only a handful of pupils because we went through them and tried as best as possible to be honest and realistic while positive. We also didn't feel that we could give high estimates for pupils who probably would have went on to do well but we didn't have evidence for (people who bombed the prelim but had subsequently pulled their socks up in class or who had got a tutor or who had been doing well when working through lots of past papers during Easter or whatever). Across the school we weren't afraid to give D and F estimates where they were justifed. I think our estimates compared to the actual exams are usually around 80-90 % accurate (and of course while some people you expect to pass well totally bomb, you also get a fair few who perform better than expected) so you will never get 100 % accuracy. Our estimated number of A-C students at Higher in my subject was only slightly higher (maybe 2-3 %) than the 5 year average (and that was a wee bit harsh as I had a good class this year) whereas it looks like some schools were putting in estimates that suggeated their number of A-C students in a subject was going to jump up by 15-20% which is clearly a nonsense. We are now in a situation where we are ruing the time and energy spent trying to make the estimates honest and realistic and wish we'd just stuck everyone down for what they potentially could have got if every single thing went for them and they got lucky with the questions and they had a private tutor and they felt so good going into the hall they were practically floating.

With paragraphs like this I can only pray you don’t teach English. 

[Joey Jo Jo Junior Shabadoo]

1 hour ago, Billy Jean King said:

At my sons school today they held the traditional 1st year parade. The newbies are paraded through the school by pipers. Good to see they are keeping it as normal as possible.

Reminds me of the time @Reynardwent to the new football ground in Paisley.

[welshbairn]

26 minutes ago, Bert Raccoon said:

Lucky them, all we got was a kicking.

And bye bye lunch money.

[Billy Jean King]

Curtain twitcher type post...
Funny you should say that. Local shop tonight, prison warden, bold as brass in without a face covering. For some reason, I wasn't surprised either.

That would be some view I have from my window.

It's 3rd hand info no idea if it's true hence "suggestion". Regardless of provenance it's going to be more correct than linking it to the kids school !

[Billy Jean King]

Did they go scrumping for apples at break?

Don't be daft, apple scrumping starts in October.

[Billy Jean King]

Reminds me of the time [mention=30]Reynard[/mention]went to the new football ground in Paisley.

Christ don't compare me to the leader of the Ayrshire Tories. What ever became of him ?

[Todd_is_God]

3 hours ago, Melanius Mullarkey said:

It doesn’t fit his narrative, you see.

Whatever that may be.

I don't have a narrative.

The revised PHE deaths figures (which bring the daily deaths reporting in line with ScotGov reporting), support what I've been saying for some time. Covid is essentially over as a public health crisis in the UK, and the sooner we stop losing our minds about new cases because "Second wave" and "hundreds are still dying every day" (because they aren't) the sooner we can start getting things on a sensible road back to normality.

It's not my fault that people unquestioningly bought into the continued fear and hysteria, and stuck their fingers in their ears at even the slightest suggestion that they might be wrong

Edited August 12, 2020 by Todd_is_God

[Raidernation]

We start back at my school on Monday, kids on Tuesday.

I’m ok with it, mind you my biggest class is 5 kids [emoji2]

[DeeTillEhDeh]

Compared to the "algorithm" results. In our subject they downgraded only a handful of pupils because we went through them and tried as best as possible to be honest and realistic while positive. We also didn't feel that we could give high estimates for pupils who probably would have went on to do well but we didn't have evidence for (people who bombed the prelim but had subsequently pulled their socks up in class or who had got a tutor or who had been doing well when working through lots of past papers during Easter or whatever). Across the school we weren't afraid to give D and F estimates where they were justifed. I think our estimates compared to the actual exams are usually around 80-90 % accurate (and of course while some people you expect to pass well totally bomb, you also get a fair few who perform better than expected) so you will never get 100 % accuracy. Our estimated number of A-C students at Higher in my subject was only slightly higher (maybe 2-3 %) than the 5 year average (and that was a wee bit harsh as I had a good class this year) whereas it looks like some schools were putting in estimates that suggeated their number of A-C students in a subject was going to jump up by 15-20% which is clearly a nonsense. We are now in a situation where we are ruing the time and energy spent trying to make the estimates honest and realistic and wish we'd just stuck everyone down for what they potentially could have got if every single thing went for them and they got lucky with the questions and they had a private tutor and they felt so good going into the hall they were practically floating.

The course I had severely downgraded was 0.05 of band better for average grade than the previous year - an improvement of 1.5% - not unreasonable - and actually would have been the same as the previous year if one pupil who was predicted to get a C6 had not been withdrawn during March as they had gone to a p/t timetable.

They ended up downgrading 15/18 pupils and giving an average band 23.8% worse than the previous year. To put it in context, the same course had 76% As/Bs in 2019, 75% in 2018 and 54% in 2017 - it was 44% after downgrading. There were also 100% A to Cs in the last 2 years with only one pupil being awarded a 7 in 2017 - this year they decided that 3 of the 18 were 7s - moving two of the pupils from predicted 5s.

There just seemed to be no evidence at all that SQA had looked at the course's historic data.

[mishtergrolsch]

10 hours ago, Billy Jean King said:

At my sons school today they held the traditional 1st year parade. The newbies are paraded through the school by pipers. Good to see they are keeping it as normal as possible.

And i hope they were marched into the gym hall where all the bullies were waiting to induct them in the traditional High School manner too. 

[superbigal]

Compared to the "algorithm" results. In our subject they downgraded only a handful of pupils because we went through them and tried as best as possible to be honest and realistic while positive. We also didn't feel that we could give high estimates for pupils who probably would have went on to do well but we didn't have evidence for (people who bombed the prelim but had subsequently pulled their socks up in class or who had got a tutor or who had been doing well when working through lots of past papers during Easter or whatever). Across the school we weren't afraid to give D and F estimates where they were justifed. I think our estimates compared to the actual exams are usually around 80-90 % accurate (and of course while some people you expect to pass well totally bomb, you also get a fair few who perform better than expected) so you will never get 100 % accuracy. Our estimated number of A-C students at Higher in my subject was only slightly higher (maybe 2-3 %) than the 5 year average (and that was a wee bit harsh as I had a good class this year) whereas it looks like some schools were putting in estimates that suggeated their number of A-C students in a subject was going to jump up by 15-20% which is clearly a nonsense. We are now in a situation where we are ruing the time and energy spent trying to make the estimates honest and realistic and wish we'd just stuck everyone down for what they potentially could have got if every single thing went for them and they got lucky with the questions and they had a private tutor and they felt so good going into the hall they were practically floating.

What do you actually think of the teaching profession in areas that clearly tried to play the system ?

[MONKMAN]

At my sons school today they held the traditional 1st year parade. The newbies are paraded through the school by pipers. Good to see they are keeping it as normal as possible.

I’m beyond thankful to my mum, for not sending me to a school like that.