Grades only adjusted by department on "solid evidence"

Treppen

I see the teacher blame is still going on.

Department did nothing wrong according to chief inspector.

"Harold Hislop, department chief inspector, said estimated grades awarded to students by their teachers had only been adjusted by a standardisation process on “solid evidence”.

https://www.irishtimes.com/news/education/severe-overestimation-of-leaving-cert-calculated-grades-by-some-schools-official-1.4405703?mode=amp

Isn't it great our school inspectors are always there to point out how infallible they are.

Mardy Bum

Some teachers did wildly overestimate their students' results for numerous different reasons. He is not wrong in this regard. These results had to be signed off on by principals and their failure should also be called out.

However, this was always going to be the case from the minute it was decided and he should have admitted that their assumptions on which the system was built were flawed.

Treppen

Ya I just think it was a bit condescending saying that grades were only altered based on "solid evidence". I'm not going to dig up history on St Killian's etc, but this is NOT a scientific process, at best it was triage scenario with teachers trying to do their best and a lot genuinely have high expectations if students had keept up the study and not thrown a wobbly on the day of the exam. On a global level for 7 subjects we know that doesn't always happen. But each teacher always feels their students can pull it off if things go as expected.

I really do wonder what is the real reason why they are flogging the dead horse now. Just re-reading the article there you can see the chief inspector has a clear agenda to abolish the established leaving cert, fair enough, but if he's using the old trope of "teachers are gaming the system " again as his excuse then we're on a hiding to nothing.

Tl;Dr these inspectors are very welcome back into the classroom to teach and lead from the front.
Really though, is 20 years seconded to be an inspector valid in the area of educational research?

dory

Yes, many did overestimate but to not have done so would have disadvantaged some. It was impossible to guess correctly.

Every year I've 10 who COULD get a H1. Maybe only 5 will. Other than 1/2 sure bets the others can often surprise me. Do I just give to those 1 or 2 , or the ten? Didn't happen this year so only hypothetical thankfully.

solerina

I know a large proportion of the grades in my school were over estimated, we hadn’t a particularly strong group last year but the results were excellent !! Way above what that group managed in their JC or fifth year exams