The government should be made to fulfil their promise re Autumn GCSE sittings since there is now no appeals procedure. [Edited by MNHQ at OP's request]

Hi,

You said your daughter is now well, or on that road, and has started to work much better than before. Her teachers will be aware of that and will factor it into any of there considerations.

I also have a year 11 daughter that has had some serious struggles this years, nights in hospital due to suicidal thoughts and now being investigated for bipolar, so while I don’t know your circumstances I do know that life can be very hard and uncertainty makes it harder.

My advise would be to trust your school. It is good to keep busy academically so start looking at A-level stuff and things that interest here (futurelearn is really good). Have 2 plans in hand, 1 if she gets the results she is happy with, and 1 if she doesn’t. Don’t keep going over GCSE, that keeps the worry real.

A really useful technique in these situations is to control the controllables, there are some things you can’t control, so there is no point wasting time and energy on those. It takes a bit of practise (I’m still working on it) but is a good principle.

Your daughter is bound to get upset and confused and frustrated and as the adult you need to de-catastrophise the situation, reassure her that it will be OK, because it will be. Not the OK that you were expecting but a new OK.

I would have thought with some high grades and good original predictions she'll be fine anyway. Good luck!

So she's predicted very high grades but hasn't hit those predictions for a year and a half?

I'm really sorry she's been unwell but if she is awarded her original very high grades, despite not showing work that backs them up, then the school will be at fault.

I'm sorry, but most teens don't make a huge amount of progress in two or three months. She may have to live with her predicted grades (my dds were very accurate). Last year dd was devastated to 'only' get a 6 in a subject she wanted to do at A level. She's worked really hard on it and is looking at a solid B at A level which is fine. I'm not sure from your post whether she is worried about the difference between 6s and 8s or 2s and 6s!

Most Russell Group state 6s are fine if they say anything at all.

To be brutally honest, if she has had very low predictions at this stage for whatever reason, then RG unis might not be for her.

I think you just have to accept that in the middle of a pandemic you’re not going to get any reassurances that exams will take place or not. It’s just too up in the air at the moment. I think you need to be honest with your daughter and talk about other options. Gap years might not be what she wants but if the autumn exams don’t happen and she’s not happy with the grades awarded then she’s going to have to have a plan B. Might be worth telling her to keep going with some study but Autumn is a long time away anyway so she doesn’t need to be doing hours every day. Untimely she’s going to have to consider plans B’s like many others

Herc - I think it’s so easy, retrospectively and As an adult, to say it doesn’t matter whether you get a 6/7/8 at GCSE. We all know this. But the point is, it does matter to a 15/16 year old. Otherwise, why bother at all if a 6 is the same as an 8? This is their life and their grades and of course it’s a big deal to them, relatively, no matter what any adult says. It’s an important life stage and something they’ve been working towards for years. So I don’t think it’s helpful to dismiss the concerns. We constantly tell our DC to do their best. The point is here, that this girl feels she has been denied the chance to show her best and that’s hard for a young person. She won’t be the only one struggling - this is a real thing.

Adults get stressed / irrational / depressed over far less than this. Yes, even in the midst of a pandemic!

or if they would have been better if exams had gone ahead as normal.

You will never know this. Even with a resit. All you know from an Autumn resit is that you got a better grade after more months of study compared to the grade your teacher thought you would get.

OP you do sound like a good mum who really cares. I think sadly you are looking for answer where there are none. Her life won't be changed dramatically if she gets a 6 instead of a 7 or a 7 instead of an 8.

MrsCanpbell’s child is being set work used for assessment for the next 3 weeks on top of the last 4 . That is nearly 2 months extra work that is going to be used as assessment.
I may not know the process but can see a blatant advantage when there is one.

This would only be the case if Mrs Campbell's child was in the same school as your daughter, in which case presumably she would also be getting the work.

Each school is going to be asked not only to predict a grade, but also to rank all their own pupils. The exam board will then look at that school's grades in previous years (so they can't predict 90 per cent 9s when last year they got zero and 60 per cent got 4 or less); but modify that further by using past performance of the class cohort as a whole so they can account for this year being significantly more or less able than previous years at that school.

You don't know yet that your DD's final results will actually be disappointing; or if they would have been better if exams had gone ahead as normal.

They promised Autumn sittings and this messing around, vague rumours, going back on promises is causing anxiety.

Maybe reflect on this. Assume that she will be able to sit in Autumn if unhappy with her results, and try to switch off from the news/DfE updates, because they'll keep causing you anxiety.

I'm really not trying to judge, just to help. You sound like an awesome mum who really wants the best for your DD, but are getting quite anxious about things that aren't set in stone.

We don't know exactly how exams will end up being affected. You can't know what your DD's teachers are planning to give her (I hope it's better than you expect). Keep her working towards Autumn exams. The study will be beneficial even if the exams don't take place.

At some point, there will be a definite announcement. Until then, it's just new forms of uncertainty, and uncertainty causes anxiety in all of us.

Sometimes it goes the other way my child's constantly predicted 6 throughout school and how he worked consistently went to just 4's when he sat exams as all went wrong on the day for him .
He still doing course he wanted which could leas to uni if wanted as well
At this stage I wouldn't panic until you know what grades you have and then wait and see what happens as it's all a bit unknown and as others have said this year will be well known about and I'm sure in future unis etc will take it in to account

There are very many of us with Year 11 children. You sound so stressed and that is not going to help your DD either. I don’t remember anything being written in stone about this and as previous posters have put it much better we are all trying to get through this the best way we can, including Education authorities. Spare a thought for others - give your DD a big hug and tell her it will be ok - many people are going through much much worse than this at the moment.

The issue is no one knows anything right now.
No one knows about the potential second Wave in autumn, which could land us back with more cancellations.
It’s better to under promise and over deliver instead of being held account for something they couldn’t foresee.

We are all having to just ride it out and wait. No one has a definitive answer unfortunately. We just have to wait it out. I would be encouraging your daughter to keep ticking along in case, there will be resits available, as there always is (I was one who retook maths in the winter as I didn’t quite get a c, flew through the second time). A few people at my school did evening a level and gcse classes on top of what the school offered to increase the range.
There are all sorts of opportunities available to the under 25’s

The unknown is shit, more so when you can’t plan and your life feels onhold as a result. This one is going to take patience as no one can give you an answer in stone

@H0usePlant I think the advice about letting your dd do whatever it takes to ease her anxiety is good. But also, try to convince her that even if her grades are disappointing, it probably won't have a long term impact. If she's not aiming for Oxbridge or medicine, I don't think she really needs to worry about GCSEs. But it's also good for kids to know that there are always second chances in the future, other ways to get somewhere, sometimes the long-winded route can be better.

My dd goes to a highly selective independent school and they haven't set any work since Easter. For what it's worth, it would probably have worked better for my dd if she'd been able to carry on submitting work. She's had some mental health problems over the last few months so a lot of the tests she did in Jan/Feb she didn't revise for as she was overwhelmed. She's much better now and if she was submitting work now, I know it would be better. But we've talked a lot about it and she knows it won't really affect her future. And overall, she's now glad not to have the stress of exams.

Help your dd to see the positives in the current situation. As I've said to dd, there's no guarantee that she'd have done better in the exams - maybe she'd have mistimed them, or not managed to revise the whole syllabus, or had a patch of poor mental health again.

It sounds like a really frustrating situation for your DD to be in, especially as she doesn't know her final grade and so will find it hard not to think through every scenario. I wonder if it might be helpful for her to go through the consultation from Ofqual and to respond to every item that affects her. She could also consider writing to Gavin Williamson and other relevant people to explain her situation. It's unlikely that a single teenager's story will determine what happens with autumn exams but the more circumstances Ofqual know about, the more likely it is that provision may be made. If Ofqual doesn't hear from distraught teens who've had a hard time throughout the course but were on track to do much better and feel they need the cushion of autumn exams, how can they be expected to consider the needs of that small group? Also, although pupils and parents mustn't harass teachers or try to influence centre grades, would your DD feel better if she were able to let her teachers know about the work she's been doing at home? Assuming the school knows about the hard time she's had over the course of her GCSE studies, maybe she could think about emailing teachers with a description of what she's been working on and an explanation that she is doing this for her own mental health e.g.
Dear Mrs History Teacher,
Since school was closed to most students I've been feeling very anxious about what that means for my GCSE grades and for my future. I had been expecting to need to sit some exams in the autumn and am finding it very hard know that I've heard autumn exams may not happen after all so I have responded to the Ofqual consultation and written to my MP about the impact it may have on me. I would find it helpful for my own peace of mind to let you know what I've been working on over the past few weeks...
I've continued to make flash cards with key facts and quotes on and have now covered all the different units. My mum has been testing me on them and I am making good progress. I've using Seneca and have worked through the units on the Great Depression, WW2 and the Elizabethan period. My test scores on those units are 70%, 67% and 69% so I'm quite pleased as those are higher than my scores before Easter. I've had a go at some 12 mark questions to improve my timing and to use the structure you gave us after the mocks. I'm hoping I'll be able to take A-level history so if there is anything particular you can recommend I prepare, please let me know...

Updating her teachers may feel useful and may result in some feedback in return. Your DD sounds incredibly motivated and it may be helpful for her mental health to know that by contributing to the consultation, she is feeding into the process and having her voice heard so she isn't entirely powerless, likewise updating teachers so they know she's still working. Perhaps you could also fill in the consultation and encourage other parents in a similar situation to do the same?

Also remember private schools are very much trying to justify their fees for this term Hence continuing assessments etc.

Crazy that's pretty much what I was trying to convey. The only difference where I am is that any work done afterwards is ignored. If we think they were close to a 7, odds are we'd put in a 7. This then gets compared to previous years and if there are huge discrepancies SLT will come back to us and we would have to adjust them up/down.

The entire country will not be ranked. They can't be, it's impossible.

@H0usePlant with regards work completed after 20th March - I think you need to realise that in simple terms, each school will have a range of grades to give out, based on prior performance of the school, of the cohort etc. So if your school has 5 x 9s, 10 x 8s, 20 x 7s etc to allocate in English, that isn't impacted by another school letting their children continue to do work.

Your school has the range of grades it has and it needs to give these out to its pupils and rank them. I don't see many schools suddenly giving a student a 7 based on work done after 20th March, if they were previously sure they would get a 5 or 6. I think schools are just setting additional work to add to their own internal data proving the grades they already plan to allocate. There may be one or two kids who they think were inching up to a 7 already and they want a bit more data to prove it - but if they do that for too many children, they will end up with too many high grades and the exam boards will knock them down.

So I don't think you should worry that what other schools are doing will affect your dd. Presumably the work she's been doing since Christmas had resulted in some improved homework and test marks already, before lockdown? Her school will know that and will predict accordingly.