The Irony Thread

pblakeney

Funny thing about Venice is that if you go 2 blocks off piste it goes from extravagant to cheap. Not ironic so I apologise, but a top tip.

FreddieVonRost

Same for Cadiz. Behaviour from the cruise ship tourist crowd was disgusting but 200mtrs away all was calm and cheap.

pinno

On topic:

I hate most tourists, especially British one's and this observation is... whilst I am the tourist.

veronese68

pblakeney said:

Funny thing about Venice is that if you go 2 blocks off piste it goes from extravagant to cheap. Not ironic so I apologise, but a top tip.

Seems obvious, cross the bridge from the station and all the tourists turn left, so turning right seems obvious to me. Then you get peace and quiet and can appreciate the real beauty of the place.

rick_chasey

pblakeney said:

Funny thing about Venice is that if you go 2 blocks off piste it goes from extravagant to cheap. Not ironic so I apologise, but a top tip.

Really not. Maybe 15 years ago.

Tourism used to be like this but now everyone has a smartphone and every tourist has watched or read the “how to avoid the tourists” section.

rick_chasey

https://twitter.com/econbartleby/status/1293656692157296643?s=21

pinkbikini

There’s vanilla irony and there’s luxury, grade A double-chocolate irony!

rjsterry

Was speaking to someone in education yesterday and they pointed out that results are moderated every year to achieve a normal distribution. This year there is just a bit more moderation for obvious reasons. Also, universities are well aware of the difficulties in grading this year and should take that into consideration. There will be far fewer international students, so less pressure on places.

Most importantly, your A level results do not define you and set your future in stone.

Anyway, good luck to Ms 666 and anyone else getting their results.

thistle_

pinkbikini said:

There’s vanilla irony and there’s luxury, grade A double-chocolate irony!

If he appealed any of his exam grades that would make it gold plated.

bompington

rjsterry said:

Was speaking to someone in education yesterday and they pointed out that results are moderated every year to achieve a normal distribution. This year there is just a bit more moderation for obvious reasons. Also, universities are well aware of the difficulties in grading this year and should take that into consideration. There will be far fewer international students, so less pressure on places.

Most importantly, your A level results do not define you and set your future in stone.

Anyway, good luck to Ms 666 and anyone else getting their results.

If SQA moderation had been, err, moderate - some students dropped a grade - I think there would have been grumbling but acceptance.

But when you (by which I mean a fellow Computing teacher in this case) estimate 4 students at B and 2 come back with a B, 1 with a C and 1 with a D... I'm really not quite sure what statistical model manages that.

rjsterry

No idea how robust the algorithm is for dealing with the exceptional circumstances. Williamson does seem to be pushing the appeal system, so I guess that is a recognition that there is more volatility than usual.

morstar

My daughter has had her lowest grade (D) in her strongest subject where she has only ever had an A in coursework, tests and mock.
Other grades as expected.
There is no sense in it at all. College is not in affluent area and her classmates have all lost min of two grades in the subject.
College appealing the entire class.

rick_chasey

Stupid question, why couldn't they just award whatever grade they were on heading into the final round of exams?

So, AS + whatever A2 coursework and Jan exams they had done?

kingstongraham

rick_chasey said:

Stupid question, why couldn't they just award whatever grade they were on heading into the final round of exams?

So, AS + whatever A2 coursework and Jan exams they had done?

Didn't they do away with AS levels being part of the A level? One of Gove's big ideas.

rjsterry

morstar said:

My daughter has had her lowest grade (D) in her strongest subject where she has only ever had an A in coursework, tests and mock.
Other grades as expected.
There is no sense in it at all. College is not in affluent area and her classmates have all lost min of two grades in the subject.
College appealing the entire class.

Sorry to hear that @morstar. Twitter seems to be full of similar stories. If universities are withdrawing all these offers, who is going to fill the places? The reports of big disparities between state and private students are worrying.

Stevo_666

rjsterry said:

Was speaking to someone in education yesterday and they pointed out that results are moderated every year to achieve a normal distribution. This year there is just a bit more moderation for obvious reasons. Also, universities are well aware of the difficulties in grading this year and should take that into consideration. There will be far fewer international students, so less pressure on places.

Most importantly, your A level results do not define you and set your future in stone.

Anyway, good luck to Ms 666 and anyone else getting their results.

Thanks RJS, posted on another thread about this but she got the grades needed (one subject a grade over the requirement and the other two two bang on after having a 1 point downgrade on a subject), so headed for Liverpool to do veterinary medicine at the end of next month. Much relief as you just couldn't predict how things might have gone and they were asking for a good score given the subject.

Thanks for your previous advice again, but just fyi Bristol turned her down.

Stevo_666

morstar said:

My daughter has had her lowest grade (D) in her strongest subject where she has only ever had an A in coursework, tests and mock.
Other grades as expected.
There is no sense in it at all. College is not in affluent area and her classmates have all lost min of two grades in the subject.
College appealing the entire class.

Hope she gets something morstar. As mentioned above it felt like a lottery without the chance to take the real exams.

rjsterry

There was a good Twitter thread I saw the other day from someone who had convinced themselves that they wanted to do medicine, but missed the grades. They went through clearing and ended up doing chemistry, in the process realising that it was much more what they wanted to do.

rick_chasey

kingstongraham said:

rick_chasey said:

Stupid question, why couldn't they just award whatever grade they were on heading into the final round of exams?

So, AS + whatever A2 coursework and Jan exams they had done?

Didn't they do away with AS levels being part of the A level? One of Gove's big ideas.

That’ll do it.

The modular set up I did would have been easy to do that with.

Have they moved exams to an all or nothing final exam again?

pinkbikini

kingstongraham said:

rick_chasey said:

Stupid question, why couldn't they just award whatever grade they were on heading into the final round of exams?

So, AS + whatever A2 coursework and Jan exams they had done?

Didn't they do away with AS levels being part of the A level? One of Gove's big ideas.

Gove got rid of AS levels and also reduced coursework to the bare minimum. Some schools weren’t so organised with remaining coursework (e.g history A-Level) and complained it was unfair to use as an assessment when their pupils hadn’t completed it before lockdown. They may be regretting that now. Mocks in Jan have no standardisation - you might as well award grades based on shoe size. That the govt brought that little pearl in with under 48hrs notice shows their policy-making on the hoof. It caused a lot of worry to loads of kids too. IMHO it’s a terrible situation caused by years of inexperienced ministerial interference.

My daughter did well, but it seems desperately unfair for some of her peers.

rick_chasey

I feel there is a better way to do this...

surrey_commuter

rick_chasey said:

I feel there is a better way to do this...

Are they saying there is a bell curve for each school and possibly each subject?

orraloon

I heard it explained on the R4 lunchtime programme that for each individual school the current cohort's grades had to mirror that of the previous 2 or 3 years. So example used was if you had an E grade in a subject in both the previous years then you had to have an E in this year's, therefore the lowest e.g. B grade pupil would be downgraded to an E irrespective of that pupil's actual track record.

Sound fair, reasonable or sensible to you?

kingstongraham

orraloon said:

I heard it explained on the R4 lunchtime programme that for each individual school the current cohort's grades had to mirror that of the previous 2 or 3 years. So example used was if you had an E grade in a subject in both the previous years then you had to have an E in this year's, therefore the lowest e.g. B grade pupil would be downgraded to an E irrespective of that pupil's actual track record.

Sound fair, reasonable or sensible to you?

Well it sounds crazy.

People could be accepted to university then have their grades lowered because someone else appealed? Not. Going. To. Happen.

veronese68

The whole thing is a huge clusterfuck, our daughter is ok and has had her place accepted but I know the whole thing is screwed. The comments above are correct, the thing about mocks seems to be a panicked reaction to what happened in Scotland. As said there is no standard procedure for mocks, different schools can do them in a different way and at a different time.
I believe if teachers thought 5 students would get an A they would then have to rank them in order of highest to lowest likelihood. That way if the school was allowed 3 As the top 3 would get them and the others bumped down. But this doesn't explain the likes of Morstar's kid.

rjsterry

orraloon said:

I heard it explained on the R4 lunchtime programme that for each individual school the current cohort's grades had to mirror that of the previous 2 or 3 years. So example used was if you had an E grade in a subject in both the previous years then you had to have an E in this year's, therefore the lowest e.g. B grade pupil would be downgraded to an E irrespective of that pupil's actual track record.

Sound fair, reasonable or sensible to you?

That does sound absurd when for some subjects there could easily be only half a dozen students taking the subject in a given year and no consistency to the achieved grades. I can see how it could strongly favour selective schools, too.

orraloon

Think you might see a positive uptick on the selective private schools' adjusted grades compared to those of the comprehensive inclusive inner city schools. Whodathunk? Entitled Tories endorse a cludge scheme which protects their 'own'.

thistle_

Heard similar stories on the radio earlier- someone predicted to get 3x A grades but got 2x A but an E in what they thought was their best subject.
Something doesn't sound right there.

rjsterry

Hope this thread is useful.

https://twitter.com/Samfr/status/1293977343267151872?s=19

veronese68

Wise words indeed, who'd have thought an expert would know what they are talking about.