When the teacher-predicted grades were provided, they recommended that five of the psychology students (my daughter was one) would easily attain a grade A if they had an exam.
They were then notified by Ofqual that this wouldn't be acceptable and there would only be one allowed a grade A mark and also one of the class HAD to be given a grade U.
That is straight from my daughters psychology teacher who is also the vice principal at the Academy.
I'm not here to defend Ofqual - the awards that have been made at A Level are a shambles.
However, the school stating that they submitted grades and then were contacted by Ofqual to be told that they must apply one of this grade and one of that grade doesn't sound particularly viable to me. The whole point of the process that they have undertaken is that schools submit what they think should be awarded and then Ofqual themselves change them to fit with what they (but not many other people) consider to be a fair model.
To the best of my knowledge, schools will have had no indication (outside of reports in the press that nationally grades were going to drop significantly from those submitted) of how their individual grades had been affected, prior to receiving them on Wednesday.
I would imagine that there would be total uproar if there was genuine evidence that Ofqual have told a school, prior to the standardisation process, that they must go back and change the grades they originally submitted to grades that Ofqual recommend - which then could still be altered further by standardisation.
Not that it makes any difference to the nasty circumstances that you find yourself and your family in - obviously the grade awarded is the grade awarded - but the explanation given sound dubious or at least confused.
Many of those kids have been failed here. The fact that grades awarded have risen on previous years, or even would have risen significantly if left unaltered is not the issue. The issue is that these kids haven't had the chance to prove themselves in exams and therefore should have been given every opportunity to get into their uni of choice and prove themselves there instead. Any results are going to be false anyway so it doesn't matter whether - for one year - they were normal, inflated or whatever.
