Everyone seems to have excelled in their GCSE mocks. Why?

[Booboohoog]

Other parents keep telling me how their DC's have got 7s, 8s and 9s in their GCSE mocks. Considering the lockdown and all the school they missed this surprises me and they're going to make the actual GCSES easier apparently. What's going on?

My teenager did more work than ever during the first lockdown. He is a talkative child and I think he learnt so much more because he was focused and learning without distractions.

He had tests recently and revised every evening at home - there is no way he would have done that if he’d been able to get out and about every evening in the way that he used to.

Most people don’t go shooting about the grades their kids got on mocks as mocks are fairly meaningless so I imagine the sample size is biased; only patents whose children did very well are likely to share the results. I’m sure plenty of kids did less well but their parents probably aren’t sharing the news.

Teacher here.
Kids have been told that everything counts and that their mocks could end up being their actual grades.
As a result the exams I've marked have been way above previous years as it seems the students have actually taken them seriously.

Well my DS hasn’t even had a chance to do his bloody mocks yet and it’s looking unlikely he’ll be able to...marvellous!!

As a teacher my experience has been my triple science top set kids have come through this year really well in general - they had good provision in lock down and definitely took the mocks much more seriously than year 11 normally do in November. Outside this group of very academic students grades have fallen away quite steeply. There is no consistency at all between schools on how these mock exams are set or grades are gathered. In fact there was huge variation just between departments within our school. We did a full unseen exam conditions paper, other departments did prepared papers or open book exams. It is the reason I get a cold sweat thinking about the possibility that GCSEs are cancelled.

The wide-eyed innocence

my ds has worked hard and has a natural aptitude for computers/science and has done very well(8/9), not so well in English/Languages.

My facebook feed talks about people getting 5/6s and being happy with them

as @Cathpot says - they know that this might be the only exams they take, and as such have worked very fucking hard (at least thats the message i gave my DS)

0/10 bugger off

Has it crossed your tiny mind that the parents of kids who have struggled and got lower grades aren’t broadcasting it to idiots like you?

I’m a head of maths. Year 11 did a mock at the beginning of November. It was all 3 papers, no topic picking, tough grade boundaries.

The results were not good but that was to be expected. It was a proper mock and I now know what my department and my teachers need to focus on. It has also refocused many pupils.

I can’t speak for other departments/schools but my experience was the opposite of what you describe. I would guess easier exams/question picking based on recently studied topics/generous grade boundaries.

This is what I was worried about. Different schools having different standards for mocks, some harder to achieve the higher grades. What happens if GCSES are cancelled and mocks are used? How can that be fair?

dd took her mocks in Nov. She has more in Jan.

Overall she did well, in that she has kept up with work during and since lockdown and so she is still on track to get the same marks.

They are a range of marks from 5- 9.

She has massively improved in German, because my mum did German conversation on the phone with her everyday through lockdown.
She dropped badly in 2 subjects and got 5's when she shouldn't have done. She freely admitts she did little revision for those as she is normally strong in them. (one is one of her A level choices), but she is confident that she will do better in Jan mocks as she will revise them better.

So about normal really.

@Booboohoog

This is what I was worried about. Different schools having different standards for mocks, some harder to achieve the higher grades. What happens if GCSES are cancelled and mocks are used? How can that be fair?

Have you got a Y11 child?

Will it affect you personally? It won't be fair however this year works for a myriad of reasons I cannot be arsed to go into. Sensible people know what these are.

It has never been fair. The hand wringing from various posters this year has been irritating to people who work with secondary age students. What hand wringing posters generally mean is It might suddenly affect my child.

I work with many vulnerable children. No one has ever given a shit about them before. But it's suddenly (briefly) fashionable to cry what about the children? and gush about how marvellous Marcus Rashford is. And demand schools stay open at all costs because of vulnerable children.

It won't last. On a personal basis my Y11Dc is likely to do very badly indeed this year, whatever formula is used to decide exam results. They couldn't cope with lockdown, mental health, and went back in Sept thinking This is all fucked now anyway. And teachers hate me. And it will all be cancelled and I've missed so much I'm not going to do any work at all. They've since had 3 separate periods of isolation and also had Covid themselves, which wiped them out.

So yeah. My DC will do shit this year thanks to the pandemic. If they take teachers estimates they will be on the fucking floor. And if they sit an exam they will struggle as they have massive gaps in their knowledge. This is a child who was academically bright and whose targets were mostly 7s and 8s. They are currently being predicted 3s and 4s.