Michael McNamara (Clare, Independent)
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245. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills the exact guidelines the schools applied to predict grades and ranking; if this was properly proofed; if this includes the junior certificate for 2017; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [29908/20]

Norma Foley (Kerry, Fianna Fail)
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The decision to adopt a model of Calculated Grades by my Department was a result of COVID-19, which prevented the State from running the conventional Leaving Certificate Examinations. The purpose of this process was to allow as many students as possible to progress to employment, further education and training, or higher education.

The Calculated Grades system was designed to use estimates of students’ likely performance in the Leaving Certificate examinations (collected from schools following an alignment process overseen by the school’s principal) and a national standardisation process to produce Leaving Certificate results.

Circular letter 0037/2020 included ‘Calculated Grades for Leaving Certificate 2020 - Guide for Schools on Providing Estimated Percentage Marks and Class Rank Orderings’, which was published on 21 May, set out the detailed guidance for schools on the operation of the calculated grades process. The document provided detailed information on the process of estimating marks for students to receive calculated grades. Additional guidance to schools on the avoidance of unconscious bias and interpreting evidence of achievement in the case of students with disabilities was issued to schools on 28 May.

Under the process schools provided an estimated percentage mark and a rank order for each student’s subjects. In line with the guidance, teachers were firstly asked to use their professional judgement to arrive at an estimated subject percentage mark and class ranking for each student. The guidance required teachers to utilise a number of records in assessing a student’s performance and progress; for example, classwork and homework; class assessments; examinations in school at Christmas or summer, mock exams and also coursework. The teacher estimation stage was followed by an in-school alignment process. The main purpose of the alignment process was to ensure that all teachers who were providing estimated percentage marks in respect of the same subject in the school were applying standards that were appropriate and were consistent with each other when doing so.

The process of national standardisation was subsequently applied to the school information in order to ensure comparability between the standards applied by individual schools and the national standard. It is known from research that teachers are very good at making judgements about their students in the local context of the school. It was inherent to the system of calculated grades that school estimates would be subject to adjustment through this standardisation process. The adjustments that occurred through standardisation resulted in the school estimates staying the same or being revised upwards or downwards. The standardisation process operated on the premise that the school estimates should only be adjusted through the standardisation process where there was credible statistical evidence to justify changing them.

Individual Junior Cycle results were not used to determine any individual’s Calculated Grades. Rather, the Calculated Grades process took account of the overall Junior Cycle performance of the Leaving Certificate class of 2020 in each school and used this aggregate level data to help in predicting the likely range of Leaving Certificate performance of that group using related information about the relationship between performance at Junior Cycle and Leaving Certificate based on national data over time for that subject at that level.