2022 gcse exams?

DD did mocks before Xmas- she he's her results tomorrow

Frankly combined TAGS and actual exams feels like the worst solution ? Continual stress for months on end with with every test mattering😔

Hate that they’re saying ‘go easy’

It devalues their grades.

It seems he has said today that

Move to full-blooded testing will be staggered, with this year's GCSEs and A-levels to take a hybrid form that includes teacher assessment

www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/01/09/last-year-go-easy-exam-marking-covid-promises-nadhim-zahawi/

DD Y11 currently doing Mocks. No Christmas hols to speak of at all (like so many of you). Gut feeling is that exams will happen, but at this stage I don't know if I want them to or not. I really don't. Counting down until 7 February when we'll find out (I hope). Anyone know if that announcement is just for England or Wales, Scotland and N Ireland too? Have those nations decided what to do yet?

Not all schools will have done three sets of mocks either. There's already provisions for details on content for most subjects, coming out in Feb, and with the government's general laissez faire stance I think they'll go ahead.

I think they'll happen unfortunately 😢 poor kids.

I expect them to happen. Even with the amount of disruption some schools will have faced. Regardless of whether it is fair or not.

Yes it’s a total mess - no idea how they can even remotely create a ‘level playing field’. Maybe at least if they do go head they will give plenty of advance info in feb?

It's all such a mess. I have one about to sit a-levels and the other GCSES. The U6 child might not sit any proper exams before Uni which is crazy. I think current Year 11s for GCSEs and U6 for a-levels have had the most disruption and poor school experience. My U6 at least had it normal until March 20 before GCSE exams, but I would have never thought he'd be in the same position 2 years later. And then you get people saying the kids are 'given' grades, what choice do the poor kids have if they're not allowed to take them?

MeditrinA, i don’t know it certainly seems premature.
schoolsweek.co.uk/omicron-more-air-cleaning-units-would-be-waste-of-money-and-6-things-we-learned-from-zahawi/

I though announcements on whether and what form exam this sumner was always expected in early Feb? Why is he on about it now?

If they want to be fair to this year, they'll need a hybrid (exam plus TAG) - because different schools have had different amounts of disruption, and pupils different numbers of isolations. And a dodgy few weeks lies ahead.

Zahawi has apparently announced today that exams as planned in summer. But of course we have heard this before ….

I'm a GCSE teacher - in college so our cohirt sits in just 1 year. Up until yesterday I'd have said exams would happen - gut feeling after our latest update from management about masks etc is that they'll be cancelled.

We have the 3rd of 3 mocks in Feb and a full set of 3 in March. I'll be telling my students to start revising this week.

I'm gutted at the thought of TAGs but I've never been more certain of my data than I am right now. Every mark is tracked and accounted for.

Oh, bless his heart, @Wowwellokthen! :(

@spiderlight yes of mice and men so not a long book but still. I cannot wait to see what is achieved in the hour this morning!

It's so stressful, isn't it? Mine doesn't even have online work going up. His teacher has basically said 'Give it a go, do your best, and you can resit if you don't get the grade you want', which is all very well, but I'd much rather they did it once and did it properly, rather than cramming. We can be stress buddies until Tuesday is over!! Is yours doing 'of Mice and Men'?

@spiderlight I am glad not to be alone! Ds is having an hour online revision tomorrow and Thursday, then back in school Friday with 3 lessons of revision and 2 lessons of revision on Monday. It is cramming but they are not really learning or understanding how to revise. I would rather he not sit it than do badly due to lack of teaching. He is trying his best and doing past papers but it is madness really especially as he is year 10 so they could wait. I have asked about grade boundaries etc but I do not think the school even know what WJEC are thinking. Fingers crossed.

@mumonthehill - my DS is in the same boat. He had huge disruption in the last four weeks of term before Christmas - he was home with Covid for eight days and his English teacher didn't put up any work despite me messaging several times to ask her to (she sent a lovely message saying he should just concentrate on getting well, but didn't respond when I replied that he was completely asymptomatic and bored to tears, and I got no joy with his head of year either, other than 'Oh, I'll remind her...'). He then had six days out of the last ten when the entire year group was at home because of staff shortages, and now they're not back in until the 6th. We've done what we can with him over the holidays but we're not English teachers. Talking to his classmates' parents, they're all woefully unprepared, especially for the unseen poetry, which they've barely touched in class. I have no idea why the WJEC crams the whole of English Literature into one term in the first place, and it's madness under the current circumstances. They've been promised some intensive sessions but they only have three days! :(

I am angry for the Year 11.
Their future employers won't care about covid when it's over and all this disruption gives them less chance of exam success

I think the current year 11s have had a really raw deal. Two years of disrupted teaching. No fun stuff like school trips. And now facing lots of exams with no certainty about which exams will count. That’s pretty shit really.

I know its not a pity contest or a race to the bottom, but I actually thought at the time that when the first year of GCSEs was cancelled, although this was a new situation and very disruptive (and an enormous amount of work for teachers) that the 2020 GCSE students were at least in the position that by March they would have covered most of the syllabus and were potentially in a better position than those in year 10 (in March 2020)
At that time DD was in year 9 and I never really imagined we'd be in this situation again.