If you have a Y11 DC, what's the school doing about GCSE assessment?

NCS is running this year. Starts early July. My dd is booked onto one for three weeks.

They also don't intend to use the exam hall for the year 11 assessments - and they don't do AS. So DD2's first proper experience of a high stakes public exam in the assembly hall will probably be her A levels. And she suffers badly from exam stress, so it's a major worry.

What about 4 weeks of enrichment activities in the morning and fun PE in the afternoon? Nope, no work experience, no transition to college, no nothing.

Who is putting on these activities? Another pie in the sky idea and very few students would want to attend.

I understand your frustration re assessment. But the majority of students would be on study leave from May half term anyway. Our school wants to keep the students in, I am not looking forward to that and I hope students vote with their feet on that one.

I have heard of two local schools (including ours) who intend to let the kids go by Friday 14th May.
No NCS, no summer jobs, no indoor socialising, no holidays with friends, not much even of holiday worth family,
DD is desperate to get out of school,but boy, it's going to be a long summer.

I think by the time the government decides what "catch up" they want to do, several years will have missed out entirely. It will probably start in 2023!

I'm also shocked that after pushing back exams originally, everything has now been brought forward. I appreciate it's the same for everyone in current year 11, but surely this cohort will struggle with the move to 6th form.

I am dreading the 3 month plus summer holiday for my year 11. Jobs will be really hard to come by so there will be lots of loafing about doing nothing.

What I'd like more than anything is for the 6th forms to run some sort of enrichment/ catch up during June for new starters. Wouldn't it be great if they could get them"settling in" bit out of the way so they can hit the ground running in September?

I don't imagine for a minute that they have the resources (or the energy) to do this though.

Mocks were originally planned for mid Feb but cancelled due to lockdown.

After return on 12th March was announced there’s be formal assessments in exam conditions in the core subjects (math, Eng and sci) in the week before the easter hols & options subjects after Easter.

Today I’ve been emailed a list of further assessments 4-5/week from the week after that until 28th May which appear to be a mixture of in-class & mass exam-like scenarios.

They’ve been told since Sept to put in an effort in case exams were cancelled but it seems as though we’ve ended up with 6 months of sustained effort that’ll count for little & no capacity left for further “peaking”

Our year 11s are also finishing at end of May. It's because the school assessed grades need to be done and dusted by mid June. So there has basically been a monumental but very quiet u-turn on the whole concept of giving this year group extra catch-up time by pushing the exams back.

Re finish dates; as staff we have been instructed to provide our Q-TAGs to SLT by the end of May to allow for their moderation prior to entry.

There is nothing left to deliver that will impact on grades; you may find that there will be sessions offered for students who will be starting their L3 courses in September but give schools & colleges a chance as we are receiving information/guidance through constantly that need our urgent attention

Ours finish on 21st, although I think there are still some classes for those who need them. In some ways I'm relieved as DS has barely been there anyway (signed off sick for MH reasons) and it's been stressing me out every morning worrying about whether he's going in or not. But - yes - 3 months of staying in bed all day is not good either.

Enrichment activities - good idea. My son might actually bother getting up to go to those.

Thinking of getting him some work experience sorted out but totally from my own efforts.

I guess the teachers have got a big mountain of paperwork ahead of them though, and the prospect of being first port of call with complaints about grades too. It's a shitshow all round.

teenminustest that’s the thing. Who wants to be studying all summer for resits or repeat a year? They just want to move on and start looking forward to something new. More of the same is quite demoralising. Here’s hoping they get enough evidence so they can avoid those scenarios.

Thank you NotDonna . I think for DD the only things we'll be looking to resit asap are maths & English language and that is so she would have the possibility of not having to do classes for a whole other year if it can be avoided. Otherwise for DD at least a fresh start at college is what she needs (provided she is well enough).

@MumofTeenDespair and @TeenMinusTests I’m sure someone on another ‘exams cancelled’ thread said the DfE will be doing an autumn series. I’ve no idea if these will be classed as resits. Given they’ve not really sat anything they shouldn’t be. I’m wondering if that will be an option? or even trying again next year when MH is improved/stabilised? It’s so very difficult and I really feel for your DCs.

My DDs school is also starting 8 weeks of assessments from next week.
Which means she doesn't have enough time to finish the teaching on the higher level Maths paper so can only get a B.

I get it's a shitstorm but I really do think that as soon as the "actual" GCSEs were cancelled someone should have realised that there may not be enough teaching time to complete the course, and therefore not offer it.
Really feel like she's missed out.

Some of the things my DS school are doing are assessments every lesson until they leave, they are going to use the last 3 years of work and tests and they will be doing 2 weeks tests in April. I'm appalled by the pressure that is being put on students to get through all of this! The schools in our area failed massively on setting work or revision in any lockdown, my son had no contact from school but that was mainly down to his teachers leaving as soon as lockdown was announced.
I'm watching my DS, his friends and my DN buckle with pressure so the school can get their grades because somewhere they know they've messed up massively.
Ds is currently in isolation due to his friend lying saying he's been near him when he had covid and he hadn't so he's missed another week of learning.
In lessons they are starting new subjects that will be featured on these exams because they haven't been taught in lockdown.
From a promise of no GCSEs to this has come as a massive shock to them and there's tears and students begging for help but no one is listening. This is the most unfair situation Iv seen in schools for a long time.

Mum I hear you. I'm in pretty much the same position. It's heartbreaking. DD can't even get in to school due to anxiety and depression.

Reading this with interest and frankly a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach. My son is suffering really badly with depression and has almost completely dropped out. He's been going downhill in terms of engagement and production of work since the beginning of Year 11. He's on a reduced timetable and supposed to be doing some work remotely from home (as he can't manage a full day at school) but there's very little being produced. School are being accommodating but I don't think they've made any announcements about how they are conducting assessments/evidence-gathering and the million dollar question from me is how much they can cherry-pick to get the best bits of evidence for my son. His grades were fantastic in Year 10 but not so good this year. Or, rather, there probably actually isn't much from Year 11. And there's little chance of him doing much of any value now. There's now way he'd be able to produce any work under exam conditions.

DD's school is selecting a specific number of pieces of evidence in each subject which meet the Govt criteria, but are tailored to the subject. So in some subject that might be mocks, where they have happened, but in others it may be coursework that was undertaken under the right, consistent conditions. They are also having two assessment periods, firstly over the next couple of weeks and then again just before half term, so it seems quite clear that most subjects will use those two assessments as part of the evidence. It feels like a reasonable balance between having a robust process but not over-egging one intense period of exams that this year group aren't really ready for.

I teach secondary science. We are doing end of topic tests as per usual to assess the last bit of content which was taught over lockdown. We'll then be doing regular in class assessments plus revision, with more formalised exams in the first two weeks of May (this is to allow a catch up period for any students who are ill or isolating to do the exams and time to allow us to mark and collate evidence by the 18th June deadline).

The aim is to have as much evidence as possible, so if there's the odd place they've done poorly over the last couple of years we can provide other evidence to justify a higher grade.

Unfortunately, I do think it is going to be extremely stressful for y11, and the two weeks of government tests will be awful (as it's a way shorter time period than normal exams).

Unfortunately I also don't think there is a good way to do this that won't be stressful - and the later schools leave any summer tests, the more risk students who miss them won't be able to have the chance to catch up, which would be extremely unfair.

It's the 18th June deadline that is the problem - that's early, even compared to when exams normally finish, and obviously time has to be allowed for teachers to mark and the data to be collected centrally.

My ds has just done a few mock exams and then after Easter there will be a couple more. I think they're using the mocks to grade them.

@EmmaStone it's a shame your school aren't running the department of Education.
They sounds like a reasonably balance approach.