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THE CALCULATED GRADE system that is meant to replace Leaving Cert exams is complicated, but it’s important to understand properly before deciding whether the assessment process is fair.
There has been increased concern this week that the system could be unfair to students, after a furore erupted in Scotland, England and Northern Ireland over the grades issued to students there.
There are three main parts to the Calculated Grades in Ireland: The teachers’ assessment, the standardisation using State Examinations Commission data, and the appeals process.
There are pluses and minuses to the system – here’s the breakdown of what is involved, and what’s the rationale behind having it that way.
Why the Leaving Cert was cancelled
In recent weeks, a number of people have suggested that the Leaving Cert written exams should have been held in July or August as had been planned.
Although a valid argument, it leaves out some of the reasoning why the decision was taken in May to cancel the Leaving Cert written exams.
If the written exams were held during the summer, the Covid-19 conditions put in place would be so constraining that the exams would not be the Leaving Cert that students had prepared for (a three-hour exam cut down to an hour-and-a-half).
There was also a huge amount of pressure being placed on students to continue to study and learn at home in the midst of a pandemic, with some students disadvantaged by a weak internet connection or an absence of support without the schooling system.
The Department of Education argued that the current Calculated Grades model allowed the vast bulk of 61,000 sixth-year students to move on with their lives – be that into higher education, into further education, or into the world of work.
Calculated Grade: Teachers
A calculated grade is instead based on two main sets of data; it is not a predicted grade, which is more arbitrary way of estimating a student’s score.
The first is the secondary-school teachers themselves. With the absence of exams, teachers are the next best way of assessing what percentage mark a student would have achieved if the Leaving Cert had taken place this year.
They will have seen the students’ work ethic, talent and progress for at least two years of their senior cycle, and possibly five or six years in total.
So they are asked to give each student a percentage mark based on what they would have achieved in the Leaving Cert exam if it had taken place as normal. This is different to the UK, which only asked teachers to give a grade.
Among the material they will use to review, are Christmas or summer tests, interim tests during fifth and sixth year, project work, assignments, and Mock exams.
They are also asked to rank the students in order of how likely they are to have achieved a certain grade. The idea behind the ranking system is to decide who is most likely to get a grade, and by extension, get a place at a university or college, or other third-level institution.
For each student, the teacher will complete a form where they record four pieces of evidence used in their judgement as to why a student received a certain score.
If one of those pieces of evidence cites scores out of line with the others, and with the final mark given by the teacher, the teacher can record the reason why that happened (ie, the student was ill).
The Department’s trust in teachers is based on research that suggests teachers can make an accurate estimation of their students’ grades when they know the exam very well, which teachers would in relation to the Leaving Cert, and because teachers have a code of practice in their profession.
The principal and other teachers
There are two steps after the teacher awards a student a percentage, and before that score goes to the Department of Education’s National Standardisation Group for ‘standardisation’:
Calculated Grade: Standardisation
The second piece of data they have is information held by the State Examinations Commission (SEC) about the students and their schools.
Education Minister Norma Foley said on 16 July: “Over 450,000 individual grades have to be prepared and checked and the outcomes need to be reviewed using different demographic characteristics which will include gender and socio-economic status to ensure that the grades are as fair and equitable as possible.”
Taking the gender of candidates into consideration means that if females generally tend to perform better in a particular subject, this will be taken into account for this year’s Leaving Cert standardisation.
The Department of Education’s argument against the unfairness of standardisation is that they are not imposing a single historic pattern of data on top of teachers’ estimated scores. Instead they are using several pieces of data, with one influenced by the student themselves (their Junior Cert results).
The standardisation is to ensure fairness to previous and future Leaving Cert years, by bringing them in line with one another. Though this could be argued as being unfair, as the Department of Education states, this is not unusual:
The Leaving Certificate results from any one year are considered equivalent to the results from any other year. This is because the results each year are subject to a process of national standardisation through the marking processes undertaken by the State Examinations Commission.
The teachers’ estimated scores and ranking for the current Leaving Cert year is cross referenced against the following sets of data from the SEC:
It’s understood that high grades will not be ‘rationed’ in the standardisation process.
Appeals process
The appeals process is limited, but also more open than that offered to students in the UK.
If a student is unhappy with their Calculated Grade, they can check that the data was correctly handled between the school, and within the Department of Education as part of the standardisation process, but they cannot review the percentage mark given by the teacher.
The Department of Education’s Chief Inspector Harold Hislop explained the reasoning behind this: “When you think about it, if that score was allowed to be reopened, there would be an incredible pressure on the teacher to increase that score.”
It would effectively mean that the Irish State would ask a teacher to rethink a student’s grade, with the implication being that they should increase that grade.
So if students wish to appeal their Calculated Grade, they can also sit a written Leaving Cert exam after the current academic year begins.
If students do appeal their Calculated Grades, appellants can access an online portal on Monday 14 September where students will be able to see a record of their individual estimated percentage mark and ranking assigned to them by their school.
It’s unclear when students will be able to sit their Leaving Cert exams (November has been suggested), nor whether it would be their full exam – this is because it is dependent on the number who do appeal.
The CAO will be treating these Leaving Cert results like any other Leaving Cert year. This includes the requirement to achieve a certain grade in a subject to qualify for a course, eg, if you need a C in Biology to get into a certain course, you still need that.
The numbers are expected to be similar to how they were in previous years, but flexibility is being sought for high-demand courses to allow for an increase in high achievers.
Leaving Cert results are to be issued on 7 September, with the first round of CAO offers to be issued on 11 September.
You can read more about the Department of Education’s approach to the Calcualted Grades system here.
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They could have sat the leaving cert with social distancing implemented.
Was this article paid for by the government? It certainly reads like it was…
@Pat Hartnett: which part of the article do you find represents opinion rather than fact?
@Pat Hartnett: agreed. As a teacher it’s highly unfair that a school you’re in, a town, your sex etc could potentially change the mark given to you by your teacher. I’m absolutely sick with worry about my students, I have the most wonderful kids who work hard and deserve so much better.
It does not appear to be an article written by someone from the Journal- is this a government publication?
I thaught we had progressed, so disappointed. Using a tool of depersonalisation and calling it an algorithm and that makes it ok? After all its not our call, its the algorithm.
Social justice and 13 years in school all ends up into being departmentalised by a maching doing a calculation. Hello 1984 goodbye 2020. With gender, class, location, bias built in to boot. Super that’s just great. Are you joking? Is this a bad joke?
What happened to the individual? everyine and anyone can rise up from anywhere, can pull out a great prefirmance on the day, but that is ignored. If your from the wring side if the tracks and male your getting nailed, eekcome to society young man.
Discracefull and not the society I want to be a part of or contribute to.
@Cathal: Judging by your spelling in the last paragraph…..I think it’s yourself who needs to go back to primary school.
@Cathal: Would you ever do a spell check on your comment before you post it please? It looks like you need to go back to school for a bit!!
@Cathal: “not the society I want to be a part of or contribute to” So are you gonna go on the dole for life in protest? lol
Very funny, is that you have to contribute?
@DeeM: wow your super observant, is that it all you have yo say? Great contribution. Take the rest of the day off
Good luck to all the students waiting on results. They represent the future and I, for one, believe they are a credit to the nation.
They have come in for a lot of unfair criticism. Let’s support them in this very difficult time for them.
Let’s bring up our eduction standards by giving everyone a PhD there is one for everyone in the audience.
Standardisation and the bell curve are inherently unfair. Ensuring year on year results don’t vary means there’s no scope for teaching to improve, one cohort of students to do better than another or to judge if exams are getting more difficult/easier. In correcting state exams I’ve repeatedly been instructed to downgrade results, turning genuine As into Bs, Bs into CS etc robbing students of of hard earned results.
@Graham Manning: same. It’s so unfair.
@Graham Manning: downgrading has always occurred yes. It’s inherently unfair to all
In-school alignment was a joke. During this process a colleague inflated all his grades. This year he has his best results ever by a long way and I’ve no doubt one or two of my students will drop a grade as a result. Complained to the principal too who pulled him up on it but he continued on arguing that his kids were that good. To put it another way, the grade he gave some kids are worth more than their other 5 subjects combined.
@Edward Ucator: you can’t argue your students are better than they are. They either have the grades or they don’t . He must have their past exams as evidence to support his mark?
@Edward Ucator: that’s highly unprofessional and the principal needs to step in here. You can’t give them way beyond what they have been getting all along just so you look good. What a selfish man, making it all about how he looks.
If our algorithm isnt published now like the UK, its gonna take a few weeks to ‘improve’
@Padraic O Sullivan: 10/10 again for time of publishing. Far down the list come morning.
The status quo in our education system is that the students coming from advantaged backgrounds get the lions share of 3rd level opportunities. Moderating a schools calculated grades based on historical achievements is how the state system protects and reinforces the status quo.
I’m worried now, one of my daughters teachers has been calling her the wrong name for the last 4 years, even after being corrected :(
Its been a very tough year for Leaving cert studends its all always difficult but omg this yr was and is so terrible for them, hope all works out for them and it will
There is an article in the Irish Times this morning saying students will have access to their teachers grades a week after they get their official results.
I hope that is wrong.
The whole thing was a mess. Dreading results day already and the potential legal challenges
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