Just chatting with a friend- she is also secondary , different end of the country, she is English , I’m science. Neither of us want the GCSE cancelled but she was telling me there is currently some very busy lobbying going on at high levels for this to happen. I really don’t get it.
I realise some kids have been severely hit by lockdown and these issues are ongoing . Even in my school where we got off lightly, the gap between our disadvantaged kids and the rest of the school has widened hugely. However , if we cancel exams and go with teacher assessment that gap is still there. If we give them a realistic grade - and we have to do that or it’s all nonsense - the outcome is the same. On top of that last year I did feel the grades I gave were fair- I had taught those kids for a year an a half , done lots of marking, they had sat exams. This year my exam groups had me for half of year 10 and whatever we get this year. I don’t know them nearly as well. Plus I’ve been given a new class at the start of their year 11 as their teacher left. I’m doing as much setting and marking of exam questions for them as I can because I don’t know them at all at this point. They have a mock in November I’m hoping they get to sit which is on year 10 work. Normally this exam would be a learning opportunity - a chance to really dig into exam technique problems - I don’t want to suddenly have to use their grades now towards an final grade. What if teachers in other schools are more lenient or set exams on more recent topics. It feels far worse than this summer. Am I missing something really obvious?
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Can someone who is in favour of cancelling GCSE explain that view point to me?
14 replies
Cathpot · 07/10/2020 22:33
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