Teen sitting GCSE exams while parent is dying

Teacher assessed grades are a terrible idea.

I’ve seen this elsewhere and the child’s determination to sit the exams (having already done one paper in that case) was their undoing. The school explained in painstaking detail the implications (if they had been absent the board could have used paper 1 but once all papers have been sat they must be taken into account) but the child was determined. It was awful all round but the rules are very clear.

Poor kid. My dh died suddenly just before dd2's SATs. The school wanted her to still take them but she couldn't focus as she was in shock so I said no. SATs are obviously less important. If it had been GCSEs I'm not sure what we'd have done.

Personally I agree that 5% is pathetic when your parent dies during the exam season. I's support a move to make it 10%.

I must admit that I thought the 'make sure you do proper mocks and that they are conducted under exam conditions' instructions last year were in case exams had to be cancelled for everyone again, and that for individuals, the normal process whereby marks for missed papers were calculated with reference to components actually completed, where enough had been for that subject? In that case, it would have been better to have been 'signed off' for papers, if some had already been sat, rather than sit all of them and rely on the 'uplift' for the ones after the distressing event?

Permission to know she could have not done the exams but would have been allowed to resit a bit later

but she can’t “resit a bit later”. The exams are done, they’re out there. So she can’t sit them because she would have known what was on the exam paper beforehand.

This is one of those situations where it’s really awful, but there is also no alternative. She was offered the chance to use her mocks and she declined so you either sit the exams or you wait until next year at that point.

Very brave girl attempting to sit the exams under those circumstances, but I do agree with pp, and while the options may not seems “fair” as it means a year out to take resits there are options and giving out/inflating grades significantly based on compassion is wrong.

The only fair solution would be for more formal evidence gathering with regular “mocks” style assessments leading up to the final exam which there simply isn’t time for the 5 million students sitting gcse every year.

Glad to read she did go to her dream college and it all worked out for her.

Permission to know she could have not done the exams but would have been allowed to resit a bit later…or yes teacher awarded grade.

Both English and maths have a November sitting, but teacher awarded grades are not allowable under JCQ regulations.

It's not a school issue or an exam board one. It's a regulatory one.

But she was given the option of using her mocks, or resitting the following year, and she decided to go ahead with the exams because she’d done badly in the mocks and thought she’d get a better grade.

The exam board obviously can’t give her straight A*s based on teacher assessment if her mocks were poor, so I’m not really sure what she is suggesting should happen instead.