Starting Year 11 GCSE 2021 Thread 2

My DD said tonight in a fit of frustration that there was no point in doing her homework as there’s no exams. It’s so hard for them all. Suck at home with no obvious end goal to work towards, and no fun stuff until everyone is vaccinated.

That’s what I mean treee re the fun stuff. Totally agree about letting them loose too early.

Also our school have already announced that all school trips have been cancelled for 2021, so I can't imagine there would be much fun stuff

@NotDonna last year as soon as the exams were announced as cancelled in March they never went back. I don't think that it would be right this year not to take them back after Easter . But I guess it depends at what point the final assessments are being made until and presumably some subjects finish the syllabus earlier than others? DD has certainly already finished the 3 books in English Lit, they hadn't gotten around to poetry yet. Maybe they will now still do it?

treee. Good question. DD1 just did fun stuff after they finished GCSEs year before last. DofE, language trip, and other bits and bobs. No ‘learning’, but of course they’d finished the curriculum pre exams plus could do fun stuff back then. Who knows this year especially given our system is so exam focused rather than for learnings’ sake.

Any teachers on here? Do you think they will keep the year 11's in school/home learning til July this year to make sure they have covered the curriculum?

I just can't see how it's going to work

DD’s mocks were due to take place after Feb half term. School have emailed today to say that A level mocks, which were due to take place next week, will be taking place then instead. They still want to hold GCSE mocks & will advise us when “in due course”

Suspect this will be after the consultation period which the Head is pessimistic about only taking 2 weeks.

I'd like to see the gcse grades of the people in charge of the government. At the moment they are getting a 'U' in this subject.

Our school have emailed today explaining about the next few months, mock results, teacher predicted grades based on previous work before exam cancellation and what route may be possibly taken in line with how the students were graded last year. They are encouraging continuous assessment and saying that now and the next few months matters as much as their previous work and mocks. It was a good email and I feel confident that they are going to do the best they can in such a situation such as this.

Fancy needing a contingency plan. Who would have guessed? I thought they would have had a plan B up their sleeves. Not to have is pure stupidity. I didn’t think even our govt could be that stupid.

TheFaithful info about timescales always welcome here! I just couldn’t resist pointing out the irony of the govt saying they need time to come up with a contingency plan.

I am disgusted that there was no contingency plan in place before the announcement (and that's not because people in education didn't think it would be a good idea)
Just thought I'd highlight what timescale the politicians are working on...
I feel so sorry for everyone at the bottom - children, teachers, school leadership teams. So much anxiety, waiting for the 'grown ups' to finally make some decisions.

Why are we not surprised @Stormer

Yes a consultation for a contingency plan about what to do if exams have to be cancelled... a contingency plan they’re coming up with after the event.

"The education secretary also said there would be a "further detailed consultation by Ofqual" that will begin next week and last for a fortnight."

From the TES new pages

I have a very demotivated Year 11 here, it's so tough on them and so early in the year to be thinking that is it.

At DDs school we get predicted grades at the end of each term and how these compare to the previous term so to be honest I’m not worried
They also did mocks in December so they can use those too if necessary
I know we are lucky

I’m thinking the schools will use a baseline of their own predicted grades, add in mock results and spend the next 3/4 months having the students under a continuous assessment. Otherwise they’ll struggle to keep the students focused and striving to improve and learn.
Have they actually said how students in Scotland and Wales are to be graded this year?

Name change, back on here so I can voice my doubts whilst presenting a positive outlook to DD.
We have a report from Spring 2019 !!! with predicted grades,6&7s, then some results back from paper 1 mocks in December, few 9s & scrap 7 in maths.
They were due to have another round of mocks - paper 2 & maths again this month.

The cags let down some of our kids very badly last year. Just wondering what covid secure bribes I should be sending into school

How's everyone feeling after Gavs announcement?
I'm starting to panic. Will they get back to school with enough time to prove themselves and provide enough evidence for grades?
Our school did winter mocks - but how can they use these results when the kids didn't even have a proper education April to July.

No we were watching at school, he gave absolutely no further detail just that the finer points were still to be finalised.

Thanks for update. Did he say what exactly will contribute to the assessment and how, ie what per Celeste, if there’ll be new assessments etc?

GCSEs will be awarded on teacher assessments according to Gavin just now

@PettsWoodParadise - well done your DD and the school. I’m hoping my DD will be the same once she gets back into the swing of home schooling. Yesterday she declared that there was no point in working any more as exams are cancelled. I did point out that if she wanted to progress to A’level she needed to keep up the pace and that there would certainly be ‘some’ method of assessment. Today has been a good start with a full day of live lessons from school which DD has engaged with.