AIBU to be furious about the GCSE

[SmileEachDay]

..consultation. Government are proposing no alterations to the English (and others) GCSE exams next year. Potential moving exams back a little, but no reduction of content at all. Nothing that will gain any real time for students to study.

Consultation here is deliberately very strangely worded so be careful when answering.

Wtf! Do they really think that delaying exams for a month is going to make up for 13 or so weeks of bugger all lessons?!

Surely the grade boundaries will just change. Like they do every year?

Now now @SmileEachDay - they’ve abandoned the need to have an audience for Spoken Language (except the teacher) and no need to film.

Cuz that’ll help.

They’ve managed to adapt History, why not make parts of the Lit Paper option based? Or even open book?

I’m with you- bloody stupid 😡

In what way is the consultation strangely worded?

Having looked at my subject, there's no meaningful changes. Students are still expected to have studied 3 whole texts and an anthology of a dozen poems, and complete a closed book exam on them.

In what way do you think this is going to cause disadvantage, OP. As a PP said, grade boundaries adjust. If they stripped out content, would that be incredibly unfair to the schools that had already taught the part of the curriculum that had been lost, given schools in the UK, unlike France's stereotype, don't all teach the same part of the curriculum on the same day. If you want the curriculum to be stripped, how do you propose picking the part that is lost and what would you say to the students and their parents who'd 'wasted' time teaching and learning work that wouldn't be examined?

MFL - quite like our changes! No words used outside the published list (usually plus 10%), speaking exam dropped. I like this - it is a lot of work - but I know colleagues will be unhappy because it’s the one thing we have a bit of control over.

To be fair @TheZeppo many students will be incredibly grateful for that! My DD was shitting herself.

Yes there seem to be very little adaptations so I forsee a very stressful year for y11 next academic year.

One thing I was glad to see was the art GCSE's being 100% portfolio which will help as they need much more time to get it finished.

Ofqual are responding to the DfE's directive in this:

They have confirmed that they do not want us to make any changes to the way content is sampled for GCSE English language, English literature, maths and the sciences because these core subjects are so fundamental to students’ ability to progress successfully to further study.

It is interesting that at a time when most parents are busy working from home whilst also home schooling that they publish a 58 page document with only a two week consultation period...

@Titsywoo but, but...

I’m going to feel the wrath of my Year 11 as I already made them do it!

I think some of the changes seem really sensible. The removal of fieldwork for geography and the limitation of history topics (really heavy content). The drama and MFL changes are good for DS1 too.

French orals have also been stripped out

French orals have also been stripped out

Definitely not social distancing compliant

Hee hee

How disappointing

Given DD’s age 15 school have been next to useless. Large comp supposedly good reputation. Have been bombarding her with emails (she has 3 teachers for maths and English with other teachers setting work for the subject and all these including the teachers setting the work are all bombarding her with emails, so she is inundated and overwhelmed, she has dyslexia and has received no additional support from school, all work has been set via email and occasionally some on the platform it is supposed to be set on, lessons are on powerpoints, emails have links in, work is set on unpteen different platforms for each subject, my dad her grandad died Of covid during lockdown so we had a video call with him two days before he died, i have contacted the school about the workload said she was feeling overwhelmed and asked them not to let her know I had been in touch (but this back fired as she received even more emails and she was furious as the teachers all said I had been in touch so she felt angry with me that I had drawn attention to her, DD won’t accept any help input or advice from us (she is struggling on on her own in her bedroom), our relationship is extremely strained, to add to the mix and affect her concentration even more next door have started building work on a noisy extension close to her bedroom, she is very emotional, quiet and withdrawn and worried about her GCSE’s. I also think she is hormonal and confused about her sexuality and our relationship with her is extremely strained. I have broached the subject of counselling as I have been very concerned about her but she has refused. She has had two lessons on TEAMS and by the end of term she will have only had 4 x 3 hour sessions in total in school. So how the hell is putting her exams back three weeks going to help her having missed 4 months of school with all the stress and isolation?

Emeeno1 Anyone would think they were trying to hide the consultation.

The DfE were recently pulled up by teachers for trying to rewrite history in their guidance for schools regarding social distancing.

TheOnlyLivingBoyInNewCross
I know they are, but that makes no sense.

For example, if a child analyses an unseen literary text in one English Language exam, an unseen literary non-fiction text in another English Language exam and analysis unseen poetry (so also literary) in an English literature exam, how is their ability to progress to higher study limited by removing one of those sections?

A student has to do creative writing for 50% of the marks in English Language paper 1, and a second piece of creative writing for 50% of the marks in paper 2. One is fiction, one non fiction. Do they need to do both to progress to A Level when A Level Literature doesn't involve creative writing and original writing for A Level English Language is coursework and free choice?

I read the consultation last night. Currently talking to DS who is utterly distraught. PE now only has to be 2 assessed sports, great, except they are now individual- for DS this would be athletics and tennis - both summer sports and so opportunity missed. His teacher says will have to rethink so he's at an instant disadvantage there as his strongest sport is football which is now impossible.
2 English papers, no changes, maths, no changes, 3 science, no changes. The stress these children will be under is unimaginable.

Zilla1

I would, for the subject I teach, shorten the lit exam and give students a choice - either answer poetry OR modern texts. Then it doesn’t matter which way round schools have taught it.

Or they could remove the Unseen poetry section.

There are lots of ways to reduce content AND ensure everyone can answer on what they’ve been taught.

splatt I can see why you are worried, we also have dd (15) and the strain they are under is pretty unbelievable. Given they will have endured six months of this, and all the stress of covid and the mental health issues that will be affecting many teens. I am amazed that the government have decided to plough on regardless -

The pressure will be severe next year, and seems to already be building. I appreciate the comments about the grading, but try telling that to the students that are desperate to do well?! They WILL feel they are at a massive disadvantage - and of course they are.

Shifting the grade boundaries will ease the situation somewhat but:

Student A
Private school: 100% good IT access, own space, parents who are on it, has covered some curriculum content during shutdown.

State school: 50% of children have no IT access/broadband, probably at least half of those students have accessed nothing (despite paper copies etc) and have therefore missed an entire unit in my subject.

We are rewriting the curriculum plans to try and squish the content in - having to cover it all because uptake of remote learning is so patchy.....

Grade boundaries won’t help with this.

It would have been quite easy to reduce the content in the Eng lit exam. Rather than actually dropping a text, you just put questions about all the texts on the exam paper and candidates only have to answer about 2 out of 3 texts and put on more questions about the poems so that the candidates have a choice about what poems to write about. That way you cover everything but candidates choose based on what they've studied.

I've a y10 too.

They said it wasn't viable to add more choice to things like Eng Lit, something about too confusing and variability in marking.

DD's already done her Speaking&Listening.

I wish they would at least remove having to learn all the formulae for science (especially those that have to be learned for Foundation, given that if you do Foundation science you won't be going on to A level science).

I haven't the energy to be furious. I'm just depressed.
DD was on track to pass everything, but I wouldn't be surprised if she fails everything now.