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Original poster

Teacher Accessed Grades - what a joke

59 replies

Zpegleg · 16/03/2021 19:40

I have just found out that my daughters school is doing full A level exams for A levels - that is nine 2 hour exams in May She has three weeks to sit them with no knowledge of content. The mental health at the school is terrible. Other schools are doing one hour mini exams and giving the predicted grades to the students. Their head teacher told the teachers make sure you give them A* -As . So they are telling the students what is in the tests. This is so unfair. Some students just get As for one mini exam , my daughter has to sit 3 x 2 hour exams for the same A level. How can this system be right. There is no standardised method across schools.

I cannot understand how this government has palmed this off and ‘ trusted the teachers’ . That is rubbish.

OP posts:
SusannaMorvern · 16/03/2021 23:18

We are having this with GCSEs. Mock exams were taken, some students were given all the content by their teachers, students sat the same exam at different times, so their mates told them the answers. Some classes had covered more content. Now the mocks are probably being used as part of their grade. Kids are cheating on assessed work too.
So sick of it all. Every piece of work is constant pressure.
DD was predicted really good grades, didn't do well in some of her mocks because of the above reasons and she's just given up, as she feels she's not got a chance now because of her mock grades. I absolutely hate her school.

Midlifephoenix · 16/03/2021 23:09

Yes that does seem ridiculous. However I don't think other schools are basing their grades on just one mini exam. They need robust evidence for the grades awarded, so should have multiple examples of work and exams that demonstrate how they came to the grade.
My daughter is a bit annoyed that her history GCSE grade will be based on the average of all her exams since the start of Y10. She rightly pointed out that while it was fair enough for the school to say the next three months of work would count, to now say things from 18 months ago was going to be used, when they had no idea at the time, was deeply unfair.

noblegiraffe · 16/03/2021 23:08

It’s exam boards doing random sampling of evidence plus targeted sampling where the results look really weird. Schools will want to avoid moderation because that will be a massive ballache.

Ellmau · 16/03/2021 23:00

A school that gives all its kids As will be picked up and moderated so don’t assume that is what will actually happen, it’s not a complete free-for-all.*

Hopefully, but remember what happened last year...

00100001 · 16/03/2021 20:00

"She has three weeks to sit them with no knowledge of content"

What makes you think she won't know what she's being examined on?

Shireslass · 16/03/2021 19:58

Concerning.
We are still awaiting advice or model assessments from exam boards.
If a student has been told their grade already that is wrong as that should not be shared by the school. Can you speak with other parents and raise concerns as a group?

noblegiraffe · 16/03/2021 19:56

A school that gives all its kids A*s will be picked up and moderated so don’t assume that is what will actually happen, it’s not a complete free-for-all.

Original poster
Zpegleg · 16/03/2021 19:55

Yep I already did that and nothing. I so angry for my daughter. Some students she knows at other schools are being given A* with hardly any effort. She now has to basically to sit her full A levels because her school thinks it is the right way to award her. How stressful for her when she thought that she would only sit some mini exams. She is resigned to not now meeting her grades for her uni offer.

OP posts:
noblegiraffe · 16/03/2021 19:45

How can this system be right. There is no standardised method across schools.

No, there isn’t. The govt cancelled exams with no plan, Ofqual spent 2 months dithering then said ‘fuck it we don’t know’ and have passed the job of deciding how to sort the mess to schools.

And it’ll be teachers who get the blame when results are inconsistent and inflated.

Write to your MP and ask that your complaint be forwarded to the Secretary of State for Education.

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