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.

I've read consultation document and they have gone to great lengths to justify and even evidence their reasoning behind not offering more choice in the exam questions. They reference several studies which suggest students don't do better if given a choice of questions. I do question the value of using studies conducted in the 70's and 90's to make this point though! Unfortunately the result is that they feel the
exams should generally be unchanged which means standardisation will be the only way of making adjustments. Yes, it will probably mean the exam grade boundaries will be lowered but this gives the same 'benefit' to all and takes no account of the fact that the closure of schools has impacted on some far more than others for a whole host of complex reasons. There is just no fair way to hold exams in my opinion.

@SmileEachDay apologies I meant no offence.
Two in the class have been pregnant in year 10, all brag about their sexual exploits with boys (including older men and male half brothers and cousins etc), one went to her primary school and bullied her in year 7, one tried to kill herself and was talking openly about suicide etc. DD is young for age and finds the class and these girls hard work so she doesn’t want to find herself the butt of these girls jokes or be seen to be too well in with the teachers.
Some teachers have made reference to my phoning her up in the emails (I don’t know exactly what was said as I don’t have access to her school emails) but have named her and must have said Something like your mums been in touch. For the odd half days she has been in school her English teacher asked the 4 girls (including DD who had bothered to turn up how they were getting on individually but in front of all four of them). The other girls all played it cool and dismissive but when she got to DD it sounded like she’d said I know about you as your mums been in touch (think DD felt embarrassed and maybe babyish). I don’t know exactly as she was very angry with me and still is.

Speaking exam dropped is madness for MFL. It’s the skill that students are most likely to actually use in life. It also swipes the legs out from lots of SEN students, who boost their mark on the speaking paper. Much better would have been to reduce the breadth of content, or introduce optional questions.

@SmileEachDay apologies I meant no offence
Two in the class have been pregnant in year 10, all brag about their sexual exploits with boys (including older men and male half brothers and cousins etc), one went to her primary school and bullied her in year 7, one tried to kill herself and was talking openly about suicide etc

It’s still not about their “morality”. I honestly want to focus on how you can help your daughter, but you’re using the trauma of other young people to make a point. I feel really strongly about that - I’m not “offended”.

Call the SENCO. Arrange a meeting, see if you can resolve anything.

@Amijustagrump

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

This^

Irelate
But only changing the grade boundaries would be an act that deliberately seeks to advantage already privileged children who have schools and families that were able to run and sustain a fuller curriculum when all schools were told the curriculum was suspended.

Changing the boundaries gives a leg up to Timmy from the nice private school where his teachers have classes of 15 and all the children had the technology to access a business as normal remote curriculum.

It actively holds back Tommy from the state school in the same town that has 25% FSM, classes of 32, no full time online provision because the school and families haven't staffing or resources to do it.

Changing the grade boundaries and nothing else says that those two children have had a comparable programme of study. Though I suppose this is Mumsnet where there's a lot of pointy elbowed types who think that nothing should be done to try and make education a bit fairer as it's always their kids who will win by pushing inequality on a large scale.