To think they’ll be uproar unless 2021 GCSE cohort get the same pass rate and high grades as this years?

[Mrschickpeabody]

And the whole thing is a complete mess.
I have a ds in Year 10. He was doing brilliantly prior to lockdown. He’s done his best with somewhat patchy home learning but I can’t see how he’ll possibly do as well as he would have done. All the focus seems to have been on the current year 11s missing their exams, proms etc. but I do think the year 10s and 12s are the worst hit years.

In response to the original question, I don't think the results of 2020 will be used for any future statistical purpose in terms of the year on year grade analysis. I imagine that they'll go back to data from 2019 when analysing next year's exam performance. 2020 has to be shelved as an anomalous year.

@chomalungma givenness incompetence is not something in going to argue about lol. Bit ops assertion that it's harder for her child who gets another year of education before sitting his formal exams, who gets to finish secondary school with all the usual hullabaloo, who hasn't lost his uni place based on the dodgy scoring system etc is frankly silly.

Her current school offers the IB, but it is still not broad enough

How broad do you want her sixth form experience to be? Our IB students work flat out with a full timetable - no study periods at all, unlike their peers taking A Levels. If you're looking for more than six subjects plus TOK, you're going to sacrifice any depth of knowledge in any one subject over the two years.

@IHeartKingThistle

Do you lot think this year's Y11 were all handed 8s and 9s? Those grades took weeks. We made sure our overall pass rate was broadly the same as the year before and didn't give a single grade we couldn't evidence. Thousands of kids across the country still haven't got what they wanted, have got 1s and 2s, will have to retake. No 'Katie's in my department! Nationally results have gone up but certainly not grossly.

Honestly this thread is ridiculous. Trust the teachers and let those kids know they earned those grades FFS.

This might be true for individual schools (it certainly is for mine) but clearly isn't true nationally.

10% more students passed with a grade 4, and over 5% at grade 7 +.

Yabu. When they sit exams grade boundaries are revised depending on performance . They have some time to catch up. Dds school are starting intervention sessions immediately to support this cohort and I believe some content is being removed in some subjects. I get state schools are probably more disadvantaged which is wrong of course.
They also had some time in school unlike other year groups
I fear more for year 12s who will struggle to get UNI places as many have through no fault of their own had to defer this year.
Crap for them all really. 10 11 12 and 13

11 and 13s lost out because some people won't take their results seriously despite working so hard. Many year 13s have been forced to defer.

Yes Katie’s do exist. I’ve read about students getting a 6 for maths when they were only ever going to do the foundation paper
Op the shitty algorithm did that not teachers I believe.

Every kid who has been in school will be affected by Corona and syllabus's etc will have to be changed it's not just year 10's

@Northernsoulgirl45

Yabu. When they sit exams grade boundaries are revised depending on performance . They have some time to catch up. Dds school are starting intervention sessions immediately to support this cohort and I believe some content is being removed in some subjects. I get state schools are probably more disadvantaged which is wrong of course. They also had some time in school unlike other year groups I fear more for year 12s who will struggle to get UNI places as many have through no fault of their own had to defer this year. Crap for them all really. 10 11 12 and 13

And the first bit of your post is why this is such a big problem, some students are going to be much, much, much more disadvantaged than the students at schools that can offer this kind of thing yet they will sit the same exams and and have the same grade boundaries. The distribution of grades risks being very uneven and unfair.

@Mummyrowland With respect I have a year 8 as well who I’m not remotely worried about. Other years have plenty of time to catch up. Year 10s and 12s have had massive disruption to the exams on which their future academic/ career opportunities are based.

And the first bit of your post is why this is such a big problem, some students are going to be much, much, much more disadvantaged than the students at schools that can offer this kind of thing yet they will sit the same exams and and have the same grade boundaries. The distribution of grades risks being very uneven and unfair

It is going to be unfair if the results are going to be based just on the exams.

Pupils from certain schools and backgrounds already have an advantage over other pupils when it comes to education.

If it's going to be just an exam based result, with grade boundaries, that is going to reinforce and amplify that inherent advantage.

The year 10 child who has had daily lessons from school, in a calm home environment with good internet connectivity, attentive parents who reinforce and encourage learning vs the y10 child who has had few lessons, struggles to get IT at home, has to compete for the equipment, whose parents may have been working all the time etc - that's an extreme example of the differences - but it reinforces the fact that just using grade boundaries is going to be unfair.

I think there’s a lot of hysteria and nonsense on here.

1. The grades aren’t really out of line with previous years. There hasn’t been massive grade inflation.
2. There will be plenty of uni places next year. This year’s students can’t take a gap year or get a job so we’re expecting UK admissions to be higher this year anyway. Add to that the reduction in foreign students coming here because of COVID and of course Brexit, and we are going to be so overrun with places that it will put some universities at risk financially.
3. Your children did not miss 17 weeks of classes. Most of them had work to do and many had live and recorded lessons. Homework was given and marked in the usual way. YouTube is dripping with tutorials in core subjects, and believe it or not, you can actually buy the books in Waterstones and Amazon. Both you and they should be proactive if you are that concerned about their performance and stop looking for scapegoats because that will not help them get the grades they need.
4. Shouting at schools is pointless. They are skint - completely skint. There is no money for anything more than they provide. Not one single penny.
5. The government’s handling of this has been one unholy mess and Gavin Williamson’s head should be offered up on a plate to the queen. However, we are stuck with it now so we may as well get on with supporting our children because there will be no recourse here.
6. I’d like to congratulate our GCSE and A level students. It has been a difficult and uncertain time for them and I hope they all get the grades to get into what they need to get into. At the end of the day, that’s all these grades do - let them move onto the next stage of their lives. We should be happy for them, and work with our children who potentially have it to come.

What SarahBellam said!

The way people are now talking about how they have just been 'handed their grades on a plate' pisses me off no end

They have been handed their grades on a plate. It's not their fault and yes, a lot of them will have worked hard but they have got the grades without having to do the exams. It will be harder for the pupils doing exams next year as they have missed so much time in school with FTF teaching. This year the cohort have had teaching which will have covered most of the exam syllabus and haven't had to be examined.

When I was in further education many moons ago you didn’t do a final exam you did ‘learning outcomes’ throughout the year which then we’re collated to give you a final grade. Would this not be more sensible now in schools?

@ineedaholidaynow

At least the Year 11 finished their studies

No they didn’t! Quite a few subjects the content was still not complete then they missed out on all the focus time to get all that knowledge together to take the exams.

They’ve missed out on that and the experience of actually sitting exams. They are now expected to jump onto BTECs or a levels without any teaching whatsoever as they year was dropped from any teaching and very little communication at all from their school.

They’ve got it hard now proving themselves to sixth form colleges that they are capable of taking these courses and will really struggle when it come to finally (hopefully) sitting their exams for A level.

I will grant you that years 10-13 had it bad in some way but stop trying to pick out some years are worse off than others, they aren’t- they’ve all had to make sacrifices to some extent!

Provision this year for y10s and 12s has varied wildly, so some anxiety is natural, especially if your DC's school hasn't done brilliantly. But I think it's completely wrong to think that the upcoming years will be judged against this one. This year will always be seen as exceptional, and whether those students are seen as having coped exceptionally well or got away with inflated grades will be in the eye of the beholder. The upcoming year will be seen as having coped well with a ridiculous amount of interruption to their studies irrespective of their actual grades, I think. I say that as a parent of a y12 (soon to be 13) student.

@SarahBellam some schools suspended the curriculum as advised by the Government so some Y10s did pretty much miss a term of new work.

When are they going to catch up? The chances are that some of the pupils who couldn’t access the work even if schools provided it due to lack of technology at home (don’t get me started on the mythical laptops provided by the Government) are in areas where there are currently local lockdowns. Now I know the plan is currently that schools will open even if the area is in lockdown, but realistically how long will it be before the ‘bubbles’ burst. Even just one 14 day period of isolation will have a big impact on someone playing catch up of a term of work.

My DS’s school kicked in with remote learning straight away. Live lessons and full timetable for all years. They even provided work for the then Y11s and Y13s. They are set up to be able to provide lessons both in class and remotely to any pupil who can’t get into school. Not all schools can provide this.

How can the pupil who has missed so much schooling sit the same exam as my DS?

I am not too worried about the next exam year matching the 2020 results, actions have been taken because it has been realised that the way things were done extended privilege rather than treating students fairly so they had to wind back. There are lessons from this we can learn when looking at next year though.

I think the exam board, ofqual and the government need to start now in least making some effort to even the playing field between those students from a mix of backgrounds taking the 2021 exams. We know even in normal times there are students that have advantages over others in their education, we have pretty much accepted that as normal, but anyone can see 2021 will be far more significant and that needs looking at sooner rather than later.

Your children did not miss 17 weeks of classes. Most of them had work to do and many had live and recorded lessons. Homework was given and marked in the usual way. YouTube is dripping with tutorials in core subjects, and believe it or not, you can actually buy the books in Waterstones and Amazon. Both you and they should be proactive if you are that concerned about their performance and stop looking for scapegoats because that will not help them get the grades they need

Many schools didn't do that.
There are parents who won't have been able to do all that - for lots of reasons.
There are parents who struggle with access to technology and internet access.

That will impact on children - and to dismiss that as 'hysterical' is very dismissive of the potential impact and the gap that exists.

I don't care if there was grade inflation this year. The utter shambles about how assessment was undertaken and the government's lack of response when problems were raised back in June is scandalous. I think there are 2 problems for those taking GCSEs and A levels next year. One is that if they do the exams they will be moderated based on overall grade boundaries- this is clearly unfair as the provision of education during the lockdown
and the likely further interruptions this coming winter are likely to vary geographically and particularly by school type. So poorer kids are going to be disadvantaged even further than normally. I can't see our current government giving much of a toss about this so it will have lifetime impacts. The second is the availability of uni places for the current year12/13s due to the necessary deferrals this year. This won't be a big public thing but will be more like a particular kid doesn't get an offer from Durham/Oxford when they might have most years. This is a direct result of yhe government's assessment fuck up this year and could be mitigated by planning but I doubt will be given this government's record

Well dd definately missed quite alot of important content as a year 11. At least 3 of her subjects had a fair chunk of untaught content. She made an effort to put that right for her A level subjects.

Personally I can see the Uni Issue even being a problem for current year 11s due to a snowball of deferring. She is looking at RG/Oxbridge.

The grades aren’t really out of line with previous years. There hasn’t been massive grade inflation.

Yes, there has been.

I thought GCSEs were going the way O-levels were when I was young (quite old now). So only a certain percentage could get each grade