GCSE and A-level guidance has been issued

That’s really helpful @noblegiraffe, thank you.

He didn’t sit a further maths mock but has handed some tests in over the time. We have never been given an indication of what he was likely to get despite asking.

In his November GCSE maths mock he was 3 points off a 9 which he was disappointed with as he had made lots of silly mistakes, and in his February one he got a 9 with 18 marks spare. Can’t remember what year but they were proper past papers and I think it was 219/240. I am hoping that should secure a 9 in the maths assessed grade but it will be good if it helps towards the further maths too.

It works exactly like a higher GCSE so I’d expect grades to be predicted in the same way. I agree that lack of evidence will be an issue - my school, for example, didn’t run further maths mocks. Any predictions I would have made (I’m not teaching it this year) would have been based on their GCSE maths ability. I suppose that you could use someone getting nearly 100% on a GCSE maths mock as evidence that they’d get an A^ (now 9) in further maths.

@noblegiraffe or any other maths teachers. Do you know if AQA level 2 further maths comes in this guidance? Is it an “additional extension award”? Or will it come under other guidance to come.

Just wondering if DS is likely to get an award for it. He has been studying for it and was officially entered but the study is after school one day a week not in main lessons. I am not sure what evidence they will have to predict a grade on.

Thanks for your help.

Our school has decided to set an exam week in lockdown for all GCSE and A level students and 25% of their teacher assessed grade will be attributed to these "exams". Has anyone else's school taken a similar approach? It seems as if it may conflict with Ofqual guidance. Thoughts?

This is against ofqual guidance. This is disadvantaging learners (use this phrase) who do not have the resources at home, May have other issues happening or may be ill themselves.
Please complain to the school and the exam boards (not ofqual, the board need to investigate).

Btec and vocational is a minefield as there are so many more variables to providers and learners compared to GQs like alevels and GCSEs.

Exact info will be getting released for these after Easter

Well, it’s for BTEC but I wouldn’t call it specific! A lot of “might” in there...

Orange DD’s school initially said they were doing on line exams, but parents kicked off pretty universally. I emailed in pointing out that they were in no position to judge the environment that the exams were being taken in, and therefore it couldn’t be fair in any way. Parent’s might be sick, they might have younger siblings running around, be worried about family and friends or just not coping terribly well with lock down. Their is no way the work can be assessed fairy. As soon as the guidance came out so did an email saying we aren’t doing exams.

I really don’t see how they can think its fair, or within guidelines.

BTEC will be teacher assessed BUT there’s no specific guidance yet on how nor information about what, if any, evidence they will collect from centres. It’s causing a massive headache for me as we had staff absence earlier in the year and although students have been kept completely in track and deadlines adhered to completely, we have gaps in our internal verification which we could usually make up at the end of the course and now won’t be able to...plus I don’t have their earlier folders or even a list of their grades and college is completely closed and locked up! I could, however, make a very accurate teacher assessment (far more so than GCSE or A level, due to the amount of work I’ve already seen and marked) so I’m not worried about that, but I am worried about later being hauled over the coals by the BTEC subject verifiers who are not given to being flexible and understanding.

Does anyone know what will happen with BTEC? DD has an unconditional offer but woukd stil like her 3 years. Of work graded

But boosting one kid’s grade means demoting another kid either via the ranking system or by aligning the results with those of the previous year and KS2 result.

The Ofqual guidance says further work should be ignored if it is of different quality to previous work and that would include work of a higher quality - no grade boosting allowed.

I'd be telling Ofqual too, then telling the school that you have done so to ensure that their results are scrutinised fully - might put the wind up them.

I have got to question what is happening here. Ofqual state caution must be used if any school uses assessments that are not under exam conditons. Are these schools private and perhaps they are trying to justify their summer term school fee?

How on earth can you do 'exams'. They have enough info - we are in very unusual circumstances

I think I'd be reporting them to Ofqual and the Local Education Authority - that's disgraceful and directly contradicts the advice given

Surely you cannot have 25% of the grades submitted on a test that is so open to cheating, looking up the answers etc its not even worth pointing it out!

Surely, surely a school isnt that stupid? If they are God help the pupils who go there.

Our school are doing assessments - a full week of exams! Dreadful for the students.

I’d assume they’re setting it but the part about it being 25% of their assessed grade is utter bollocks (for a start, in many subjects there’s really no such thing as “25% of the grade” if you’re taking into account classwork and so on).

In fact I would email them querying this and asking why they do not already have sufficient data to make the judgements as other schools will.

You cannot set a kid a high stakes exam to be sat at home in uncontrolled conditions.

That sounds like they will be on extremely dodgy ground, especially with those who do not complete the exams.

But can they assess who had google open for a start?

Our school has decided to set an exam week in lockdown for all GCSE and A level students and 25% of their teacher assessed grade will be attributed to these "exams". Has anyone else's school taken a similar approach? It seems as if it may conflict with Ofqual guidance. Thoughts?

I know 3 Year 13's who have already received unconditional offers as a direct result of the A level cancellations even though these offers were previously conditional. My DS's sixth form college has also said that its entrance criteria will be relaxed this year as a direct result of CV. There is hope - but we need to be patient and let this play out.

Thanks HappySonHappyMum. Dd's school have said nothing about relaxing the entrance criteria. Maybe there will be a way to appeal. She doesn't want to go to any of the local colleges. I'm so worried for her and so sad that she won't have that final opportunity to prove what she is capable of.

I think University's and Sixth Form colleges will soften their admission criteria because of the crisis. There is no point resitting GCSEs unless you don't get grade 4 passes as GCSEs and A Level's are just a leader to get you to the next educational stage. There is no way that Sixth Form colleges will have the space or the staff to teach Year 12 students GCSE resits and the A levels they are supposed to be starting and the Year 13's that want to stay back and repeat their A levels. I think this is a time for acceptance of the results that are awarded and it's time to focus on the future.