Alps Blog – A Level: the Last 8 Weeks
-Advice for Heads of Sixth and Raising Standards Leaders in England
I am writing this in February half-term conscious that Sixth Form leaders nationwide will be gearing up for that ‘final push’ to try to ensure that their students and their school or college gain the best possible results in the summer.
I am sure that the issue of the Performance Tables in January will have further clarified the importance of concentrating on the accountability measures: retention, GCSE progress, L3 average grade(s) and the L3 progress score(s). Now that we all know that the minimum floor standards were -0.50 for Academic VA and -0.75 for Applied General VA in 2016 you are probably determined to ensure you do not have scores remotely like those in 2017.
Nevertheless, a lot of energy might be wasted on trying to calculate what your 2017 scores might be – even if you have absolute faith in your teachers’ predicted grades.
If you are using the L3VA Ready Reckoner to try to calculate your 2017 L3VA based on professional predictions, please remember that the actual L3VA will be calibrated at subject level based on 2017 A Level results. Will linear subjects, such as Biology and Chemistry, perform the same way as their modular cousins did in 2016?
Will you have loaded all the ‘ghosts into the machine’? Do you know for certain which discontinued AS results you will need to include, especially those taken in 2015 by students who then left school (and education) after one year of study.
If that was the end of their 16-18 study, the DfE keeps hold of them until they are aged 18 and then hands them straight back to you in the 2017 L3VA.
The only way to improve your potential Value Added score for Alps or the L3VA is to improve your results.
-Focus your energies on further improving predicted attainment by concentrating on raising subject outcomes.
-In turn, that can only be achieved by raising the performance of specific targeted students.
That should be your strategic priority from now through to the exams.
What might some other top priorities be?
- How robust is your data? Make sure you have quality assured your data with subject leaders, so that you are confident you are not wading deep in shifting sands:
Faced with these Alps predicted subject grades would you sat back in anticipation of your best year ever or have you gone back to subject leaders demanding to see their evidence?
- Have you mandated that all teaching of new content is to be complete by Easter (at the latest) to give staff time – especially on linear courses – to go back and revisit knowledge and skills that students need to have mastered to excel in the exams.
- Have you arranged PPEs / mock exams during March to test what students really have mastered and where personal and collective group ‘gaps’ exist.
- If you are in PiXL6, are you planning to use Walking Talking Mocks and Walking Talking Marks in the remaining weeks? Have you just told subject leaders they are ‘on Huddle’ or have you sat down with them (individually or collectively) and shown them where they are?
- If you have set an A*-B target do you know how many A*-B ‘secure’ grades you have and what proportion of marginal B/C grades need to be converted to B in order for that target to be achieved?
- Are you meeting regularly with your key marginal students to ensure everything possible is done to ensure that they achieve their currently insecure grade?
- How are you ensuring that the most able in each subject are being stretched and challenged towards A*?
- On the Wave 1 Linear A Levels, do you have any students who are vulnerable to fail? They are way more exposed in 2017 with no UMS from AS to support them. Have any of those subjects had a track record of surprising you and the students with unpredicted Us at AS in recent years? Make sure those students are being supported.
- Are teachers ensuring that students are confidently able to know what is expected by the typical command words in exam questions? How about using those as a series of starters?
- Are teachers ensuring that students understand the most important points in each unit’s mark scheme so that they do know what the differences between, for example, a B and C answer are likely to be?
- Are you running a UCAS deficit? Every teacher should know the university offers of the students they teach and the grade or points they need to obtain from their subject in the summer if they are going to match their preferred offer.
- On the legacy modular A Levels, such as Maths, are students who under-achieved in one of their AS units entered for it this summer? If they are entered how are they being supported in between now and the exam in order to ensure they achieve higher UMS.
I am sure that individually each of you may have additional priorities.
However, if you are doing all of the above and more, you should be able to reap your just rewards on Results Day.
Good luck for the summer. All that will be left to do then is to upload your data to Alps to ensure you have your L3 Value-Added reports around GCSE results day in order to evaluate your performance fairly and to be able to set the right strategic priorities for the year ahead.
John Philip
Senior Educational Consultant
Alps
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Sunday, 26 February 2017