The mathematical model used to adjust A levels aligns grades with the past performance of the school. This means that kids who do well in schools with a poor record, are almost bound to be downgraded despite their talent, hard work and despite natural justice. #torychaos

So...how are individual students chosen to be hit with a downgrade? Well...schools were asked to provide a predicted grade and an academic rank so the algorithm looks at your child and downgrades if the school's grades are higher than last year and your child has a low rank.

Now, at no point does this system assess anything the student has actually produced. It's all just a teacher putting in spreadsheet numbers. The rank numbers in particular are silly. If you have two A grade pupils on your course, who gets the lower rank?

Scotland, of course, has reversed itself on defending this random statistical beating of real kids. England should do the same. Why dump on kids? What is the worst that will happen if we get some grade inflation in an exceptional year? Nothing.

https://twitter.com/DougieMacM/status/1294080701873172481?s=20

Data adjustments example in detail https://ffteducationdatalab.org.uk/2020/08/a-level-results-2020-how-have-grades-been-calculated/