2022 gcse exams?

Ds has his mocks second week back in January. I know he has had nowhere near the same teaching as Dd had at same stage (4 school years ahead). He’s currently trying to teach himself further maths using online videos. Awful for them.
I hope exams can go ahead though.

my DD is in year 11. So far she's been reasonably lucky (not having any isolations for being a close contact) and they had mocks before christmas. However shes had a pretty crap xmas holidays and now has covid. I imagine its going to be very disrupted with teachers and pupils absent after christmas.

Classwork* sorry typing in the bath rn

Fingers crossed they’re cancelled, it’s my last shot at my maths resit before I leave college. My class works been good so hopefully that’ll push me over

Cranmer,
I don’t think TAGs are good for many; especially if they hate exams, better to only do them once. TAGs meant multiple sittings of GCSE exams for my dd. It was awful.

The exams MUST go ahead. Only 16% of A level grades are predict correctly.

www.economicsobservatory.com/should-we-stop-using-predicted-level-grades-university-applications

My DD was over predicted by 2 grades in her A levels. DS, however, was under predicted. School predicted 5 and 6s for GCSE, he got 99988888777 (8 A stars!). Covid meant A levels were cancelled. He given a C grade in maths and so lost his university place. He sat the October exams and got an A star (up 3 grades!!) and went up one grade in another subject too. TAGs are great for some, but are unfair for others.

Thanks @cauliflowersqueeze for the further details. It’s good to hear about some of the things your school have put in place to make TAGs more robust.
I also get what you are saying about grade inflation, and how unlikely it is that teachers would consciously mark anyone down out of dislike for the individual child.

My problem is that not all schools took the same approach, and certainly there was a lack of transparency in our school about howthey arrived at the marks.

In my case, my child was eventually awarded grades which were in a couple of subjects, 2 grades lower than what she had achieved in her December mocks. I was told that they weren’t allowed to use mock results at all in their calculations.

My experience is that different schools took different approaches and I suspect ours won’t be the only school that were consciously trying to avoid grade inflation, did the system they chose to use happen to disadvantage bame and WC kids?
We’ll never know how they arrived at the conclusion not to use the mock exam results in their TAGs... And knowing the school the way I do, i just don’t trust them.

The way it worked out, No teacher can say was fair based on their experiences. Schools managed the crisis in their different ways and I don’t believe there is an overall view that can be arrived at about the fairness of GCSES for those yr 11’s

Needless to say , I would prefer my current yr 11 to sit the exams.

I think that if there are further widespread closures (either because schools are officially closed, or because there are outages because staff absence levels mean some have to close for a while because they cannot safely open) then there will have to be a level of assessment alongside exams - for A levels (and all 16+ and 13+ exams, not only GCSE)

Exams only will simply not be fair - it's bad enough with the amount of variation arising from closures/isolations that have happened over the last two academic years without the possibility of more, and of it falling unevenly.

When they said the announcement of possible changes to exams would be made in February, it seemed crazily late because there was so little time left after that. Now it seems rather more sensible, for by then we will know if there has been a lost/badly disrupted January.

TAGs will be partially based on mocks. Schools have to do 3 assessment sessions, so mocks, something probably March and then June.
If there are no TAGs then skip the March ones.

It’s terrible for them.

[quote Igneo]**@cauliflowersqueeze
I don’t know how you can make such a sweeping statement that no teacher under graded. I had a yr 11 with TAGs and just don’t understand how they came up with some of the grades they did based on ongoing performance, including mock exams run under tight conditions. That you can’t believe that a single teacher would mark with unconscious bias makes me think you are ignorant of the racism and classism that some teachers perpetuate in our classrooms.
As for the appeals process, I actually couldn’t understand the stuff they sent out. How is that a fair process?[/quote]
Agree with this

Not saying intentional.

And appeals process needs to be clear and transparent.

Ds year 10 and in a welsh secondary is supposed to be sitting his English gcse on January 11th. It seems mad to go ahead as they are not returning to school now until the 7th and they have had so many teachers off since September. It seems unfair and a huge pressure. I think many of them did badly in their mocks and having not sat exams for ages they simply have no experience especially of how to revise.

They’ll make the BTEC students do them even if the sky is falling I think but not A level and GCSE. Huge disparity in fairness with the BTEC’s last year.

I personally think the exams will go ahead. DD is in a small school and she has had multiple teachers off with Covid, one was off a month as was quite unwell. DD had Covid herself and missed school. They have had so much disruption; I only hope that the exams take this into account.
Every school has done mocks differently so to my mind it isn’t a level playing field if these end up being used as TAGs. I also agree that some schools teach to the exam. They have a rough year ahead. No one will remember this cohort in future years and will be disadvantaged compared to the (quite frankly) inflated grades from the last 2 years.

@Igneo, I realise I am not all teachers but in my school we did everything we could to ensure fairness.

Firstly, the exam papers were numbered rather than having names on in our school. The exams officer had the list. My department has 2 teachers; we are an optional subject at GCSE and very small at A level. Both teachers marked all written papers (different colours) and only then were we given the numbered list. Students sat 2 sets of written assessments - Music GCSE's written component is 40% of the total - both invigilated by normal independent invigilators. With the performances, because they were videoed I knew who they were at A level. However, we both had to independently write comments justifying where on the mark scheme we placed them.

Once all those marks were in, they were compared to FFT data and the individual student's overall grade profile. We spent 3 hours on GCSE discussion with a group of 18 and an hour on A level with only a few students. Every mark was scrutinised by SLT and we were asked to produce evidence to substantiate any results which deviated from the school's expectations. In some cases, clever kids who aren't great musicians (but enjoy the subject) didn't get the 8/9 they got in other subjects. Conversely, we have some less bright but fabulous musicians whose result in Music was above their other grades. SLT accepted our rationale in all cases.

Exams and NEA are so much easier and less hassle for staff like me. I prepare them, submit work before the deadline and that's it. This was ongoing for months with loads of extra work but because I am conscientious and care about my lovely students, I did it. If this crappy government gave a shit about anything, they would put things in place NOW so we all know what is likely to happen.

Yes, Y11 are the year group hardest hit by covid and isolations. Vaccinating them sooner would have really helped.

I think there was a lot of anger last year that schools were essentially open as normal in June and yet exam classes had already finished school having sat the assessments that counted. There wasn't any covid-related reason that they couldn't have sat exams.

So why would exams be cancelled? To account for the differing levels of disruption experienced by different schools? I think we are now way beyond the ability to tell what a student would have got were it not for covid.

Recently I read some research via Teacher Tapp (sorry I can't find the original link) which suggests this current Y11 could very well end up being the most disadvantaged cohort so far. I think this is also based on the idea that grade to mark boundaries will probably be raised to try and get back to issuing results more in line with 'normal' years.
I don't think it matters whether they close schools or not. The exam boards will need to take proper account of the disruption across the board. Many kids are being taught by supply or non-specialists. Many subjects at GCSE can't be taught by a non-specialist and most can't be at A level. Half my classes have missed several weeks of their lessons due to pupil infections. I caught Covid at school myself and so did my dh (also a teacher) and both dc - we were all off for several days as a result. We taught from home but it was not as effective and very difficult. My dd (Y11) has has had to do many lessons posted online due to her teachers being absent. Last year, TAGS were hellish for both the teachers and pupils. Everyone's mental health has been affected by this. It worries me greatly and I've no idea how my colleagues will go on.

It’s hugely unsettling. And unfair on all. There is no good outcome of this for students. And I have quite a few colleagues who were so utterly sick of the massive weight of TAGs from last year that they’ve said they will resign if they happen again.

I suspect they will go ahead as this 'wave' is expected to be short and sharp. I don't know how they will account for the differing levels of learning and disruption though especially as they were planning to align the grades back towards the 2019 levels.

It's extremely unsettling for our already beleaguered teens. Ds is supposed to have a first set of mocks in Jan and thereafter in Feb and Easter. It's a lot of pressure to be 'on' and improving all the time.

@igneo

I didn’t qualify my message with enough detail I don’t think. Suffering with Covid here.
I absolutely do realise there is bias but would say

1. teachers didn’t give a grade based on what they thought, they gave a grade based on the evidence produced by the student.

2. teachers didn’t make a judgement alone, there were mechanisms in place to ensure as much fairness as possible. For example at our school assessments were marked by someone who was not the student’s own teacher, and then moderated by others. So while of course there is bias, schools had to build in mechanisms to counter this. We had 3 layers of checking.

3. it is never in a teacher’s interests to mark down or grade low. That’s actually one of the issues with the whole thing because teachers are often so keen to give the benefit of the doubt that the grades in some cases end up being inflated slightly. We tried to ensure it was as objective as possible by repeated moderation, aspects of anonymity and using only the evidence provided (which was different from the previous year).

4. exam boards randomly selected samples of work to check that the standard was being applied fairly. What they couldn’t check was that teachers weren’t teaching to the test, unfairly in my opinion, when other schools were not.

If you weren’t clear on what evidence was used then the school should have clarified that. The evidence used had to be “holistic”.

My issue with the grades is not so much that schools weren’t using the evidence given or that there was bias meaning some students didn’t do as well, my issue is that I know of some schools (via colleagues who work there) who basically taught to the test and tutored their classes to pass the assessments they had created. And this is the issue with teacher salaries, appraisals etc being based on student results. And it has an impact of course on who then is able to access A level courses. Some “benefit of the doubt” inflated grade students will potentially have taken the place of others who did not make it as their assessments were more objective.

Hope that helps clarify.

@cauliflowersqueeze
I don’t know how you can make such a sweeping statement that no teacher under graded. I had a yr 11 with TAGs and just don’t understand how they came up with some of the grades they did based on ongoing performance, including mock exams run under tight conditions. That you can’t believe that a single teacher would mark with unconscious bias makes me think you are ignorant of the racism and classism that some teachers perpetuate in our classrooms.
As for the appeals process, I actually couldn’t understand the stuff they sent out. How is that a fair process?