Gcse 2021 anyone appealing?

AzPie is it possible you and school are at cross purposes re the access arrangements? They may mean that your DD is not entitled to e.g. 25% extra time (there is a formal process to go through involving applying to the exam board, I think by January - maybe they didn't apply). But I think you are saying she should have had rest breaks/separate room-type arrangements, which the school can organise themselves without reference to the exam board I think.

The bottom line is though, that every head of department had to fill in a form to confirm access arrangements had been applied where relevant (or explain why not on a special consideration form).

Hopefully you can gain more clarity on this from the school. If nothing else, it will be useful experience if you have to go through something similar in sixth form.

My dcs school had no mocs either in 10 or 11 due to covid. Tests wete done 90% on icas and 10% on prior attainments. We do not know how prior attainment was calculated. In a couple of subjects the icas wete significantly below any grade my dc were given in any test. Is there amy way we cam check whether the tests were fair and square. We previously won a court case against the school and the slt do not like me

@Anyother
Yes, he is. I've moved my younger child too. They could NOT stay there.
It's the only state High School for 30 miles (rural area) so I've had to move away (awful for kids). But it was dangerous and educationally awful. A teacher whistle blew 2 years ago, dismissed, took Council to court and won but & his life was made hell. Poor kids stuck there.

Thank you for the website info. x

www.jcq.org.uk/summer-2021-arrangements/

This website will help - you have to appeal to the school first - the form is on that website - and then appeal to the examining board.

52andblue, I don't have any advice - I just wanted to say that I'm sorry. The whole situation sounds horrendous. Is he at least done with the school now?

I want my Ds to appeal his grades.
He was at a School graded Requires Improvement (for the last 5 yrs)
He had very poor tuition (there wasn't a physics teacher for 2 terms, taught by PE teacher, & physics syllabus wasn't finished by the end.
Similar for other subjects. They didn't take any Mock exams. NO predicted grades were given since 2019. No 'advice grades' at all.
He has Autism. He has Dyslexia. I was told by the DHT that 'no exam concessions would be made as no Exams are being taken, just tests'.
When I complained he advised me 'to be mindful that the SMT would be adjudicating final grades'.

During his GCSE's Ds had: a MH breakdown requiring hospitalisation
and was subject to a malicious SS investigation started by a pupil who had been allowed to bully him (by the School) for 2 years.
I submitted all info to School.
He was told by a TA that he should get grade 7 x grade 7's. but NO information was ever written down or sent home by school re work.
He got 1 x 7 1 x 6, 4 x 5 and a 4. He is gutted. He has started his new courses in Scotland and may have to pull out of them with grades now. Another lovely lass who worked really hard failed 3 of hers. She was in tears and set fire to her results paper outside school. I felt so sad for her.

How do I Appeal if School are not replying to emails / phone calls?
Do I go straight to the exam board? (AQA)

@Cleanmean I think herc is correct that they'll be full papers

@Cleanmean AFAIK they'll be the papers written for this summer.

I get what you say about fairness, but an 8 is still fantastic and if it’s year 10 is it not just an extra GCSE like Stats or Eng Lit that won’t matter as much. Either way I think he’s done brilliantly.

I know, Bumblemug, I kind of deserve that. I just think unfair is unfair - whether it's 3-4 or 8-9. He's thinking of a degree that's competitive and looks at GCSEs and he's bright but not a genius so every grade counts. Sorry if it's distasteful to post when others have much bigger issues.

Bumble to be fair, Any did say it is a first world problem. I guess for a high achiever an 8->9 might feel as important as a 3->4 does for mine.

I'm just so upset for DD. So much effort over so many years and so many struggles to overcome in her life. And shot in the foot by pandemic / mental health.

Sorry to hear about everyone's frustrations. I'm reading about appeals and have no idea if it's worth doing one. After all their is no precedent. My son's final grade was based on a test he took in the autumn (8) and two tests taken in the spring (close to full marks for one, and full marks for the other). He was very disappointed to then receive an 8. It doesn't make sense that he ended up with a mark that he was working at 6 months before the end of the course. Is this even something worth appealing about? He's just finished year 10 so it was this one grade. I realise that it's very first world problems but seems so unfair when reading about the 'inflated grades' when some students would have been better off doing 'real' tests...

• as PP say ( not day )

@AzPie I’m sorry to hear that. Don’t give up. I think that as PP day you need to somehow show there was additional information that occurred suddenly at the time of assessment. They tend not to take long term issues into account for SC, I believe. So it’s a case of couching any information you have to meet that requirement perhaps. But I’m not an expert by any means- except by experience of my DD/MH etc.

Also re access arrangements, only the school will be able to say if DD was entitled to extra time or a reader etc as that’s based on her normal way of working/ test scores. They have to meet a threshold for these.

The only thing I imagine the key worker may be referring to is things like rest breaks, a prompt to help her focus or a smaller exam room to reduce anxiety . These are not based on test scores and can be given more flexibly / freely if deemed appropriate. That’s my understanding anyway.

We are in an unusual situation in that our concern is that school chose not to provide an invigilator at home for DD, (despite us offering to pay), and she may have been marked down due to that, which would be upsetting as we kept really controlled conditions for her. We are awaiting info.

In a Norma year specia consideration may only give 1-5% increase and is extremely hard to get. Even students with significant bereavement and significant mental health concerns get a marginal uplift. The hoops to get that are huge too.

Access arrangements - if your child has been awarded them should have either been used in the assessments or the grades adjusted to reflect.

Special consideration in our school was documented and taken into account on a holistic level. Eg if a student was close to a grade boundary, the special consideration was used to put them up. It wasn't a set percentage because that would be impossible. There were also cases of missed work/assessments and we either substituted or gave a grade based on the evidence we had.

Remember in a normal year special consideration is very hard to get and doesn't give much of a percentage increase either.

We've requested info on what was used for 1 subject, and may do for a second.
For subject 1, if the most recent assessments were a pass grade we will consider appealing based on procedure/access arrangements.
For subject 2, if the most recent assessments were a pass grade we will consider appealing based on not using previous alternate assessments in place of missing ones.

[quote PlumpCushion]@AzPie my DD’s A levels were appealed last year (from ACD to ABC) as the college did not know that they had to apply Special Consideration themselves and factor it in to the CAG. Could it be that your DD has also be denied her special consideration? I would really research this carefully as the college didn’t even know they had to address this themselves until I told them! They then led the appeal themselves. Don’t assume the school have correctly followed procedure and taken your DDs circumstances into account.[/quote]
I don't think the school care about any considerations at all. So far they have stated she wasn't entitled to any access arrangements when she definitely was(I checked with her keyworker), they didn't grant mitigating circumstances because apparently bereavement and being admitted to hospital due to MH don't count (and the head of year told me to apply as they counted). I had a look at the JCQ guidelines and there is mention time and time again of them only being assessed on what they have been taught and how some students may need alternative evidence. They clearly haven't taken into account the fact DD has only been taught approximately 50% of the entire curriculum due to not having correct support in place. I also don't get how she can be given a grade that is lower than any grade she's been given on work for the past 2 years, it even states in their own policy that they will start at the lowest grade for that student and work up, for DD that would be (in English) a 5/5.