A Teacher's Perspective: An interview with Valerie Anne Moody and Beth Dodd.

A rare retelling of events as well as an account of personal decisions and opinions regarding the crisis that occurred in the summer of 2020.

In 2020, while the world was in the midst of dealing with a global pandemic, many schools and their students suffered great consequences due to the lockdowns imposed and restrictions on learning. The A Level's at this time caused significant distress as an algorithm was devised with the intention of combating grade inflation and moderating teacher predicted grades. The algorithm, when put in effect, caused an outcry and Ofqual and the Government received countless complaints that eventual led to the use of the algorithm being overturned.

Valerie Anne Moody, a Biology teacher at Queen Elizabeth School in Devon who has been teaching for 15 years across both secondary school and 6th form worked closely with students when the A level 2020 crisis came to a head. Alongside Moody, Beth Dodd who works as a primary teacher at St James Primary has been working within the system for 8 years.

We recently caught up with both teachers and they allowed us an insight into both their current and past working experiences within this controversial system. Moody and Dodd's separate experiences within the differing levels of education give a rare perspective to the use of algorithms in the education system, both in 2020 and in the everyday.

Valerie Moody:

1. What was your response to the closure of schools and getting rid of exams during the pandemic?

"Our school kept open for keyworker and vulnerable students. Everyone else was taught remotely via TEAMs. In the circumstances I think that it was important to close as we had a number of vulnerable staff and students. I was personally very relieved that I didn’t have to have contact with staff and students. It was however very damaging for the mental health and safety of many students and staff. It was a shame that some sort of formal assessment was not possible for year 13 students."

2. When the government implemented the grading system for the 2020 A-Levels, did you feel like your students would be disadvantaged in any way?

"I personally think that enough importance was given to teacher perception of students ability. I was worried about my year 13 students as some developed a more positive attitude during year 13 and didn’t get the chance to demonstrate this properly."

3. How did you feel about the ranking of students? Did you feel like this was a fair way of doing things?

"Not really as it didn’t allow for students who may have under normal circumstances performed at a better level."

4. The algorithm also factored in the school's past performance, do you think that this was reflective of the cohort of students you had in 2020?

"No each year group is always different. Some years the groups are better than others. That particular year had a number of outstanding students in comparison to the previous groups."

5. Do you have any more thoughts on the use of algorithms in education as a whole, for example, when they are used to produce target grades?

"Target grades are often unrealistic and set up students and staff for failure. Students develop at different rates. Some schools are too target focused. It is a real problem when the target is way too ambitious and we always have students who overachieve their targets by 2 or 3 levels."

Beth Dodd:

1. Do you think SAT grades should impact secondary school target grades?

"Difficult to say. Possibly they could, but in realistic terms they shouldn't be used, as they simply represent a snapshot of a students performance at a specific time of their education, and even then not a particularly useful snapshot, as they test memory instead of skill."

2. Have you ever had to rank your students? What was your experience with this?

"I Don't think so, at least not formally. I tend to group them by ability, based on what I have seen of them in my time teaching them, rather than grades alone. I also prefer to allow my students to choose to challenge themselves, rather than giving out tasks based on perceived skill or ability"

3. Do you think this system of student ranking is fair? Is it justified?

"No, it is far too subjective on circumstance, and rarely do they ever capture the whole picture of a students ability. They also vary wildly from school to school."

4. Do you think there are any alternatives to algorithms or alternative uses of. them?

"From a primary perspective, they can be useful for gathering data on an individual student basis, rather than rankings. For example they could be used to create a profile of a student for a teacher to use, and work out if they are over or under-performing."

5. How did Covid 19 affect how you taught?

"Online teaching was hard, since work had to be relayed through parents, who may not have understood the material themselves. Another factor was that upon returning to the classroom, students were not actually used to being in person anymore, so my teaching style there had to change."