Teachers over-predicting A-level qualifications

Mary Curnock Cook, head of Ucas, has claimed that teachers are boosting students’ predicted A-level grades in a bid to help them win places at top universities.

Ucas data shows that universities are increasingly ‘more flexible’ with grade requirements, accepting pupils who fail to achieve their predicted grades.

Cook claimed that more than half of students accepted on to degree courses in 2015 had missed their results by two or more grades, spread over three qualifications. Cook added that teachers often ‘over-predicted’ sixth formers results simply to secure initial offers from a university.

Speaking at a conference on higher education at Wellington College, Berkshire, the admissions head said: "I talk to a lot of schools and people who advise students and, in the past, I would have said, ‘surely you wouldn't be over-predicting your students on purpose?', and actually just this last summer really, I had teachers coming back to me and saying, ‘actually, yes we would.'

"I'll show you why, because actually, accepted applicants, the number who are being accepted with quite significant discounts on their offers and their predicted grades, has grown quite a lot - 52 per cent of A-level acceptants have missed their grades by two or more grades over the portfolio of three [A-levels]."

Cook expressed concerns that the incidence of teachers over-predicting grades was becoming more common, with figures showing a nine per cent rise in students predicted to score two A grades and a B at A-level.

She said: "Offers are being discounted at confirmation time, and we can see that. We can see that because the lifting of the number controls has increased competition amongst universities to recruit students - you can see that happening.

"For example, of the proportion accepted to higher-tariff universities, about 44 per cent of those with BBB in their A-levels got a place at higher-tariff institutions, compared to just 20 per cent in 2011.”

However, Malcom Trobe, Association of School and College Leaders (ASCL) acting general secretary, argued that whilst predictive grades were often higher than actual grades ‘teachers are looking at the best possible outcome for the student’ and are predicting their ‘maximum grade’.