Surely using mocks for GCSE grades is hugely unfair.

Yes, it's horrible for them but a solution will be found. Nothing is fair atm, you know, what with all the people dying.

You really think detailed plans should be produced for every eventuality resulting from the whole world shutting down for weeks on end? These are such momentous times that if we make it to the other side everyone will have done brilliantly.

You aren't listening OP, go back and read my post and tell me what's wrong with the scenario I laid out.

Schools are expected to prepare for everything

No they aren't. That would be unreasonable. You may expect schools to prepare for everything but that is impossible. Schools, the DfE, Ofqual and the government are dealing with a rapidly changing situation.

No idea which comment you're "no they're not heads are doing that" was aimed at.

This whole sorry thing is just shit for them

He’s said it’s a mixture of course work, assessments and prior exams, and if some kids feel they would have achieved more they can likely resit in the autumn,

THey had to be cancelled, it was just too much uncertainty and some schools/kids having more resources than others. Ds's school is small with only 1 teacher of some subjects, one of his teachers had to isolate due to severe medical issues, they would have had no further teaching.

Yes, everyone in education is working incredibly hard and everyone knows what we're doing wrong.

What would your solution be OP?

After getting the message from the tutor I have searched and searched and couldn't find anything so I wonder where she got that from. My two will be relieved as their teachers thought them capable of more and ds had just been congratulated for going from a 3 4 in English in his mocks to a 4 4borderline 5 in his latest assessments.

1nterstar Thu 19-Mar-20 19:34:11
But some teaches mark more leniently than others.
Er.......and so do examiners (I was one).

Schools havent closed to prevent infection, they closed because there aren't enough staff.

The last effort at a contingency plan, made yesterday afternoon was to reduce the required distance between the desks so we could get more candidates in a room and use fewer invigulators! It's not like no one tried to come up with solutions.

At the moment the D of E is trying to work out how to:

keep key workers' children in school
protect the vulnerable
Feed the children in school
Feed the fsm kids
Get children to school
Get enough staff in the right schools
Etc
Etc
Exams

Obviously it's a horribly anxious time but solving exams today or next week won't actually make any difference. The others will cost lives. Melodramatic? I wish it were.

The DfE is people too, if you have a workable solution for any of these, that you think school and other leaders havent yet considered, really, please let us know.

And agree with CheriLittlebottom as to the likely approach. Take the existing disaster recovery plan, make sure it is fit for purpose in the current situation (which is what I expect they are doing right now), modify it as required and roll it out.

The 67 kids don't have a choice as if they weren't their the NHS or food distribution would fall over.

That is different from 200-300 turning up needing invigilating in far more rooms than usual and all the setup etc and admin, half of them having been ill in the run up etc.

I too was surprised they have cancelled them but they won't have done it lightly I'm sure.

No idea why my autocorrect turns every 'in' to 'on', sorry.

Had nobody ever thought what might happen in event of a national disaster

You can't plan for every possible scenario. What businesses tend to do is brainstorm all the risks then rate them based on likelihood and impact. They then plan their reaction for the highest ranked risks. I suspect the civil service do something similar. Whilst a global pandemic requiring all exams to be cancelled is obviously high impact it would have been rated very low on likelihood, so I suspect wasn't one of the top risks for which they needed to plan.

You really don't know that they are going to screw things up for lots of children. You are assuming the worst. And, whatever they do, I expect there will be an appeal system for those who think they've been given the wrong grade.

Mocks results aren't held centrally by the exam boards or anything, they are just on file in school. The schools will be given guidance sy some point on how to come up with a grade, based on, as a guess, various factors, such as:

• The target grade as predicted by the year 6 SATs plus the appropriate level of progress
• The school's progress scores for the previous years
• The teacher assessment of their current working grade (which will be partly informed by mocks but also recent work in the classroom)
• Teachers' professional judgement to estimate the grade they were most likely to get in the summer
• Any coursework elements for practical subjects.

Teachers have always had to fill in predicted grade sheets for all pupils to send to the exam boards on case of disaster (individual child who gets hit by a car on the way to their first exam and is on hospital for the rest of the exam season, van carrying exam papers crashes and papers all burned, courier company loses a stack of papers etc) it wont be a million miles from what was done then anyway. Which is basically the teacher going, "hmm, probably a b", "yep, put so-and-so down for an A, they could definitely get that". Etc.

(Shock - teachers are usually pretty good at this.)

'Using mocks' won't mean take the grade they got in mocks and give them that.

It will mean 'take how they did in mocks into account along with other information such as the school's usual results, KS2 info, teacher assessment and turn it into a reasonable grade, quite possibly erring on the slightly optimistic'.

My son’s English tutor told me the education secretary just said they will use mocks

He has said no such thing.

There are no easy answers. I suspect it will be based on teacher assessment with some kind of checks to ensure teachers aren't engaging in grade inflation but that is just a guess.

Of course it's worrying, is there anything we're not worried a out atm?Do you know how many hugely worrying things education is dealing with atm? In expecting 64 vulnerable kids tomorrow and I don't yet have any food for them, or enough staff.

If this is so unfair (it is but nothing about this situation is fair) let's hear your suggestions for fair solutions. Honestly, we'd love the help.

I agree OP, very hasty. Many students will have checked out by now which is totally natural once they heard the words "cancelled" but my DC year 11 and 13 are being told to continue working/have assessments via school remote learning platform. Very confusing.

Seems unfair to me. No uniformity. Different schools have them at different times, and a teacher can choose a harder mock to prompt/scare the children into working harder, whereas another teacher might make it easier to encourage students. Some haven't even finished teaching the syllabus.

I'm struggling to grasp how it will actually be done!