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]

H0use - I think you’re getting a really hard time on here and I can totally see where you’re coming from.

Can I ask though, when you say your DD was having a “shit time,” what does this mean? Are you sure the teachers won’t take this into account? It may be that she’s surprised by her grades in August (in a good way). Let’s hope so.

Yes I do think this business of promising Autumn resits and then retracting that (if this is indeed the case) is very bad practice. Of course there will be many DC who have had a bad time for all sorts of reasons and the Autumn exams would have been their chance to do themselves justice.

I don’t have a Year 11. To the teachers who say they can predict exactly what a pupil would have got in the summer exams, I’m not sure about this. Take my DS for example. In the Jan mocks he got mostly 7s, but a 5 in Chemistry. If it was up to teacher assessment, they would have given him 8s / 9s in most things I expect because they would factor in some exam “uplift”, but they would have had no evidence whatsoever to award him the 9 in Chemistry that he eventually got. He surprised himself by getting 9s in everything, but I doubt teacher assessment would have given him this. And this is in a selective independent with small class sizes and over 90% if grades are 7/8/9 every year.

Now he’s applying for unis and I’m afraid some more competitive unis do look at GCSEs, even though everyone tells you they don’t. If you look at the admissions criteria for Oxbridge they do state this. Yes A-level grades are what will get you in, but you still have to get your foot through the door for an interview in the first place and in the absence of AS levels, strong GCSEs will back up strong predicted grades. Predicted grades are just that - predictions.

Yes if you go on to get the required A-levels and apply afterwards with grades in hand, your GCSEs won’t really be relevant but, as OP says, this does not suit everyone. Gap years for say, politics or geography or language students can be great because you can do overseas work that can be very relevant to your degree, but for maths and science subjects, not so much (unless it’s biology because you could do an environmental project or something).

Anyway, it’s not about this. It’s about pupils being messed around and a lack of clarity.

I may not know the process but can see a blatant advantage when there is one.

Because you don't know the process, you think you are seeing an advantage. There isn't one I can assure you.

Having read the letter published by the Secretary of State for education, it doesn't actually say the resits will take place in Autumn. It says 'exams should take place as soon as reasonably possible'. A timescale was not promised.

OP, you've interpreted that as it being the Autumn term, as no doubt many others have. 'As soon as reasonably possible' could be next summer!

And the teachers on here are telling you it doesn't work like that. All grading has to be quality assured, a teacher can't fiddle their grades.

Hec but if a teacher had given a higher grade due to newly submitted work then that kid is taking away a grade from somebody else when boards shuffle, or not?

It doesn't work like that. The teacher cannot award a higher grade to one student due to newly submitted work without awarding all students a higher grade. They cannot disadvantage those who didn't do the work.

The statistical shuffle by ofqual no one really knows the exact process. They can't rank the whole country, they only have school wide ranking. So if they think a school has over or under graded, they will change grades within the school.

@H0usePlant

You really are catastrophising here. You do realise we're in the middle of a pandemic and that decisions are having to be adjusted all the time? The DfE had to act quickly once it was announced that schools will close, and suggested that resits might take place in Autumn, but Ive not seen a 'promise' published anywhere. However, I have read lots of information regarding how grades will be awarded, and how students should not be doing work now towards those grades as it won't be taken into account.
You're talking as if your DDs life is in tatters as she won't get a chance to get the grades she (you) want in order to get to an RG Uni. She's really being set up for a load of disappointment from you.
Your job as a parent is to reassure her that in the grand scheme of things, her GCSE grades don't matter. If she doesn't get the grades she wants, she could resit them next summer. Thousands of students do you know.
At 16, the obsession with her future is unhealthy. So much can happen that's out of her control and it sounds like she (you) have not developed resilience to deal with shit that life can throw at you.

My dd1 got reasonable GCSE grades, flunked her AS levels and had to leave school. She went to college and did a BTech, which is absolutely what she didn't want to do, got a good enough grade to go to uni (not RG) and now, 10 years later, has a fantastic job earning 100k a year. What she has got is resilience in shed loads, and a positive attitude that has taken the knock backs and made the most of them.

It really isn't the end of the world!

The best and healthiest thing to do was to get on, study and show what you can do.

I guess that's where we disagree.

I think the best and healthiest thing to do is accept she has worked hard up until school closure and that school will assess/rank/grade her fairly. To accept and move on, and focus on A level prep.

It doesn't work like that op, one piece of work is not going to change anything. You don't seem to understand how the process works

It would be unfair though to say to schools "you all must use mocks". Or "you must use work done in January only". There has to be some allowance for variation and the fact teachers know their students.

Your dd may even end up coming out better. If she had a bad day MH wise in an exam, then she could have crumbled. This way some of our students will come out with a more complete set of grades than if they had sat all of the exams.

Tell her to prep for A level and ignore the rest. If she needs to resit for further study (unlikely) then cross that bridge as and when.

For those on the borderline, the centre assessed grade isn't a guarantee anyway. The grades will be moderated statistically nationally so students may move up or down. The grade the teacher inputs may not be the grade the student ends up with. Ofqual have also been clear about this.

The extra work cannot be an advantage. It's not allowed to be.

Ofquals statement means centre's have to pretty much ignore any work done.

By not disadvantaging students who haven't done the work, you conversely can't advantage students who have because of the nature of the ranking process.

Anecdotally most schools I have heard of are ignoring anything post 23rd March.

I also think you're getting a bit bothered about the word evidence. We won't be sending any evidence to ofqual. I don't think they will ever ask for it unless we launch a cohort level appeal which is very unlikely.

Teachers aren't stupid, we know if any kids are sending us work now then it's possibly not their own work. We're looking at a huge range of factors before deciding on grades.

The unfairness actually comes when a school lets people continue to submit late evidence, as the school won't actually know who has done the work. That would allow individual pupils to leapfrog others in their own ranking order.

100% this

Hence why we are ignoring any work after 23rd March

H0use I don't think you are correct.

If a school is taking extra evidence now, I can't see how that will help its overall grade profile for a subject. The school's submitted grades will be checked statistically over their usual results. They can't suddenly uplift everyone.

The unfairness actually comes when a school lets people continue to submit late evidence, as the school won't actually know who has done the work. That would allow individual pupils to leapfrog others in their own ranking order.

Schools will know pupils improve from mocks to real exams. They will know which pupils were working hard to improve and which won't.

If your DD is a hard working high achiever, I don't really see why she shouldn't get awarded the 'right' results.

If some are getting extra work and assessment now, they all should. The advantage is obvious. Least of all the fact that doing work at home unsupervised for assessment is very unreliable.

Most setting have stopped setting work for GCSEs. We have continued to set work but made it explicit that it is not assessed work.

Also agree re time taken, I am assessing a private candidate and it will take hours.

surely you need plenty of evidence for that not sporadic bits

Ofqual have appreciated every setting is different with regards to evidence. There is no formal evidence they want us to provide. School cannot tell you what evidence they are considering. I can't tell you what my school are doing. But I will reassure you it isn't just mock grades, or just homework marks, or just assessments. It's a thorough process with allowance for gut feel. Remember we are awarding the grades we think they would have got in the summer. Not the grades we have evidence they have achieved.

i agree with teachers posting here about the process. Clearly it's far from ideal, but it will be thorough and it will be to a massive extent accurate. Op you do need to realise this.

I was a teacher for years and as others say, very rarely surprised by a grade. Certainly almost never surprised at a higher grade than I thought.

I called what DS2 would get last year with only a couple of grades wrong, and I wasn't even his teacher.

A massive jump up between Feb/March and May is not that common. Teachers will know what your dd would have achieved.

Unis don't care that much about GCSE grades beyond the basics, they care about A level predicted and to some extent personal statement, then maybe extra things like relevant work exp.

I'm sorry your dd is struggling op, and I see that you and she are frustrated and disappointed, but if I were you I would encourage her to focus on her A level choices and Eng and Maths if she thinks these might be below a 5.

@pinkblanchmange

Agreed. Even classes of 19 are taking approx 6 hours to decide. Cohorts are nowhere near done yet but 8 hours invested so far.