Teen sitting GCSE exams while parent is dying

Exactly - look at the COVID grade inflation.

We can't do that though. We can advise, yes, but in the end they have to choose.

I think in a situation like this the adults should take over and stop the student from sitting the exams, any way you look at it this girl has been failed. She needs to be protected, cared for and be allowed to forget about exams. Poor kid.

Whilst when you are doing them, GCSEs are hyped up as the most important thing in your life, they really are not.

You need enough to gain admission to your chosen post-16 course.
You need maths and English, and occasionally something else (eg a science for primary teaching).
Universities may look at the grades, but will also look at information provided about extenuating circumstances.

Most sixth forms will use their discretion in the case of a child who has had a bereavement or other trauma, and because this will be at a local level, can talk to the school (if not staying at the same one) about suitability for the course.
There are autumn resits for maths and English.
Nothing's ideal, but it's very difficult to set a fair tariff for how much extra to give; some kids might be unable to think at all, whereas others may be able to switch focus and perform much as normal.
Some kids might be prouder of "6 despite circumstances", than "8 but probably only because they gave me extra because of..."

Quite - and it sounds like this girl dropped by more than one grade, so more than 10%.

If she got a 7 in her mocks but thought she could get a 9, then sat the exam and actually got a 6, are you saying she should have been given 20-25% to push her up into 9 territory? Despite zero objective evidence she was capable of it?

She would have been better pushing her sixth form college to be compassionate and accept her based on her mocks/letter from her current teachers. I’d expect an admissions team to make allowances for mitigating circumstances.

I really sympathise as DD was unable to complete an A level paper due to spending much of it lying on the floor in pain.In her case it was a pre-notified condition that meant she had a private room. She should not have done that paper as then they'd have used her marks from her other two papers. Special consideration in her case was a maximum of 3%. It dragged her down from an A/B borderline to a D overall. She was on a gap year due to the need for major surgery - had there been the option of an autumn resit she would have taken it, gone back to school for the term.

The real cruelty in the system is not just the low compensation for special consideration but also that the option of an autumn resit is no longer available. (Thank you Mr Gove). For a child like this one resists in a years time seems unthinkably far away - and she wouldn't have been thinking practically anyway - whereas resitting next term would be more palatable

A fairer system would allow the option of special consideration cases redoing affected papers (and just affected papers) the following autumn.

Would repeating the year be an option?

Just did some digging around and there's a sentence on the dfe website from last September about mocks.

It refers to one set of mocks which must be retained in case of the government determining that exams are not able to go ahead.

It specifically says that this is not for local disruption.

The problem is that there's no consistent approach to "mocks". You can't compare child x at centre 1234 with child y at centre 4567.

Public exams are marked to a specific standard by a "small" team of people who are monitored continuously.

In my department of ten, one person will give "benefit of the doubt" marks; one thinks the mark scheme is "too complicated" so uses "gut feeling"... and so it goes on.

The problem with teacher assessed grades is that the biggest piece of evidence they have is the mock results.
In most schools it's drilled into the kids that mocks matter, but still for many 15 year olds they don't really believe it.

My kids took public exams this summer (and in 2022 which was the first year back).

i believe that the schools have to keep “controlled documents” or something so that in this type of case, kids can use those for results. Controlled documents might be mocks or other exams taken under proper conditions.

Having a parent die during exams is unfortunately not as uncommon as you might think.

As far as I can see, there is nothing in the regs for this series in relation to mock exams. That ship sailed many years ago.

No one is debating the rules are not clear

But if I am correct re the circumstances for which mocks were to be used (possibly @MrsHamlet or one of the other teachers / examiners could clarify? I can only see the updated JCQ rules for 2024 online), then the school gave rather poor advice with regard to subjects for which enough of the required assessments had already been completed. If I am wrong,, then knowing that she had not done as well as she was capable of in her mocks, the girl was indeed put between a rock and a hard place wrt completing her exams.

I agree OP. My son has just sat his GCSEs while his sister has Stage 4 cancer. He has had to deal with his own emotions and those of us his parents who are devastated.

It is the day to day impact these kids suffer of listening to his sister crying in pain, losing her hair and absent parents staying over night at hospitals.

5% is the maximum award that is given, I imagine for the actual death of a family member.

When I spoke to the school they were overwhelmed with dealing with sheer explosion of kids needing extra time to complete exams due to SN they said it was unfair but all they could offer was to ask the exam boards to consider his situation and we wouldn't be told what their decision was. No extra tme was offered as we'd missed the deadline to ask.

We will be proud of him of whatever his results are. His sister is racked with guilt.

What would I suggest?

That if the candidate is able to sit the whole qualification, they get special consideration.
That if they sit part of it, the same applies.
That if they sit none of it, they be offered a statement of recognition.

All of these things already exist.

That if they sit none of it, they are allowed a fed free entry to the next sitting, should they want it.
.

What would you suggest in these circumstances ?

Compassion can't be measured in %'s - why is 5% not compassionate and 10% is, why not 15% before it is compassionate?

Compassion is measured in supporting the young person through a difficult time and helping them with the options available to them and making any reasonable adjustments with what option they chose.

It isn't.

Schools basically did what they liked and the exam boards signed off on it because they - we - had no choice. It was an extreme situation which affected the whole cohort.

There was no standardisation, no moderation, no consistency. And that's why the results went insanely high in some places.

TAG workload was insane and unsustainable.

The death of a parent is not the same. That's not to say there shouldn't be some recognition of that in awarding - which there is - but it would be extremely unwise to have a system based on TAGs.

It’s what they had to do during Covid though- an extremely unexpected circumstance. Which is what having a parent die right in the middle of your GCSEs is.

Mock exams would have to be standardised across the country for that to work, though.

I'm not unsympathetic to the students in this situation - I've taught for a long time and seen a lot of terrible situations - but it's not as easy as people would like it to be.

I’m not sure what the answer is. It is awful for teenagers having to sit GCSEs when they have just lost a parent, with the alternative being to drop back a year. Not great choices. But I don’t think increasing the percentage allowance is the answer either. Perhaps the importance of mock exams really needs drilled into teenagers and then these results, alongside tag’s could be the alternative option.