OK I'm going to do one last mini-thread on teacher assessment as this deeply unhelpful Telegraph headline has pissed me off.

The reason teacher predicted grades were much higher than exam results is not because teachers (on the whole) were being unethical or unprofessional but because teachers' are assessing their view of capability and exams assess actual performance.

For instance imagine I'm a maths teacher in a normal year and I have 5 pupils who I know are all capable of getting an A. They sit the exam and only 3 get an A, for whatever reason, e.g. a tough question they weren't prepared for etc...

Now this year I have to give an assessed grade for those 5. What do I do - well I know they're all capable of an A so I put them down as an A.

That happens across the system so overall now there are far more students predicted an A than in a normal exam year.

But as the teacher I've done nothing wrong or unprofessional. How could I possibly tell which of those 5 would not perform on the day? All I can possibly judge on is whether they are capable based on their work to date.

It is literally impossible for individual teachers and schools to anticipate exam results and moderate accordingly so it's really wrong to try and somehow indicate they are to blame for this.