This year’s GCSE and A-level assessments are a total FIASCO from start to finish! Wales already have their results! GW has to go now!

[Lulalu]

I just found out via another thread that in Wales, “provisional” GCSE and A-level results have been issued and these are basically the results that will be officially awarded in August.

How can anyone take this year’s results seriously when schools across the UK can’t even stick to the same schedule for awarding grades?

It’s bad enough that every school has essentially been given free reign to devise its own assessment criteria!

At my DS’ school they have done three rounds of formal assessment per A-level and the results will be 100% based in this (except for subjects which include an NEA). Yet he had a friend over yesterday, who said at his sixth form college, they’ve had no formal exams whatsoever - just “mini tests” in class during which they could confer with each other and use phones to Google the answers!

Is this some kind of joke???

HOW IS GW STILL IN THAT JOB??? Sorry to shout but, I can’t believe it.

Please vote -

YANBU - GW has let students down and needs to go - NOW! This is a shambles.

YABU - No, GW is competent

GW has copped out of any responsibility and has left it all to “the expertise of the teachers.”

The one saving grace in all of this is that I have far more faith in the expertise of the teachers than I do in the government, so we're more likely to get a fair and reliable set of results through them than we would if GW was actually taking any responsibility for the situation. However, I do have concerns about the huge amount of extra pressure that has been piled on teachers, with very little support.

In Scotland students always recieve their A level results before England and Wales. Many go to unis outside of Scotland. I don't see why you are upset that Wales has released provisional results. It is to allow for any appeals. Education is devolved and Scotland and Wales make their own decisions on issues such as this.

I agree that GW is useless and needs to be held accountable though. I am amazed he has managed to duck under the radar throughout the many fiascos and the pat 18 months and more.

Wales have their results because we have a devolved education system (as pps have said) plus our GCSEs and A-Levels are different. We have our own exam board (WJEC) that most qualifications (but not all) use and they issued guidance for provisional grades to be released so students could appeal if necessary before results day. The process of justifying the grades given has been rigorous from start to finish this year after the disaster last year. The grades were made up of things like assessments that they sat this spring but also homework and class work that they didn’t know was being included when they did it. As pps have said, Scotland has always got their results on a different date and worldwide students are coming to the UK to study and clearly have different results days… and every year the unis cope and England isn’t at a disadvantage. Nothing has been ideal this year but moaning about Wales when you clearly don’t understand that we are devolved is pointless.

I know about Scotland but they don’t do GCSEs or A-levels. Scottish unis generally have a foundation year too, as far as I could make out and this is why DS didn’t apply to Scottish unis because if he’s doing a 4-year degree he’d rather have a year overseas. It’s a different system.

I realise Wales is devolved too, but I guess this is just another example of lack of consistency. At least in a normal year, all grades are issued in the same day - whether it’s the Welsh exam board, EdExcel, AQA, Cambridge or even IGCSE. This year just feels like a free for all and schools / boards making it up as they go along. Which they have had to do!

Scottish students go to uni in England and Wales too and have always had their results early - a week earlier I think.

But the point is it’s NOT inconsistency when Wales is concerned because we are devolved. Just because we’ve happened to share a results day in the past doesn’t mean we’re now inconsistent. Your issue lies with Westminster’s handling of England’s exams not with Wales having a different system.

Whether you took your A-levels under the WJEC, AQA, EdExcel, Cambridge or whatever other boards there might be, an A-level is an A-level as far as unis and employers are concerned.

Yet it seems from what op are saying that the WJEC have specified a coursework element as part of the overall assessment? My DS has basically sat the equivalent of A-levels - 3 rounds of formal exams and his grades will be 100% based on this. Other schools are doing their own variations. Yet they all supposedly come out with the same qualification?

ds1 predicted results (English college) are based on five assessments for which he has been given the marks so I guess he is really in the same position as the Welsh students in that he pretty much knows what his predicted grades will be.

@Lulalu

Sorry, my point being that regardless of reforms or lack of reforms, Welsh A-levels are still treated the same by university admissions as those achieved in England.

And Scottish students apply to universities based on the results they already have in the bag from their penultimate year at school....

You could argue that tehy have an advantage EVERY year as they know their grades before applying to Uni and aren't wasting their time applying to courses they have no hope of getting into. There are conditional offers, but mostly for medicine and Oxbridge only.

I think iGCSEs are sometimes released earlier as well, and IB results come out at a different time, in addition to the different timings of results from Wales, Scotland, and other international systems. They are all eligible for universities in England too. I don't think you can legislate for what other countries decide to do, even if they are competing for the same universities - they will be relatively small numbers. If you think English results should be out earlier, then you have to petition for that specifically, not compare with other countries. There is huge lack of consistency always, between exam boards, schools, countries etc.

They all come out with the same qualification in the same way different universities will assess their students differently yet everyone graduates with a Bachelor’s degree.

But when do Welsh results come out in a normal year? Is it the same as in England?

Can I just stress again that Wales has released PROVISIONAL results? They aren’t going to be confirmed until results day.

IGCSEs come out in the same day as other GCSEs as some schools use both.

At least teachers knew what they were assessing for this year - you should have been part of last year's fiasco. I had a Y11 and a Y13 last year - that was fun.

I agree GW is a complete disaster (and seems to have been shut in a cupboard recently - haven't heard anything from him for months!), but the Wales issue is nothing to do with him.

Scottish Universities do not in general have a foundation year. They are four year degrees which offer breadth and flexibility. Many students change their degree/speciality choice because of that flexibility.

@Ilovelove

Given the social distancing (set apart exam desks) and rigid rules (silence) in ‘normal years’ in sitting exams plus only coming in for the exam, I don’t understand why they didn’t sit as usual.

(in usual years) Results are scaled and so if you had huges amounts of people doing ‘badly’ then the amount of marks to get an A, B,C would be less to reflect this.

I know it would be 1-9 not A* - G

It's not about the actual distancing rules. It's about the huge variation in time that pupils have had in school. Obviously summer term of yr 10/yr 12 and Jan-Mar of this year for the current cohorts will have been roughly similar for everyone. But since September you'll have had some schools in areas that had very few, if any periods of isolation, and some that were already on their 4th period of isolation by Xmas.

That means you can't just adjust the grade boundaries downwards in the same way as you would for a particularly hard paper that everyone scored poorly on.

I'm free.

Just checking an e-mail from work though and it looks like shit is hitting the fan and nothing is working properly. Was just thinking I was glad to be off.

Be angry at Gavin Williamson fucking things up for English pupils by all means, but don't be angry at Wales for putting their pupils first and giving them a chance to appeal school grades before they're finally issued. Sounds an eminently good idea to me, to save all that last minute panic.
Wales has a much more humane, people centred government than England, but we in England knew what a bunch of dishonest incompetents we were voting for back in December 2019 and supported them in droves (NB I didn't!)

I’m not angry with Wales. I suppose it’s just another example of inconsistency across the board.

I suppose it’s just another example of inconsistency across the board

It's an example of different governments.

“It's an example of different governments.“

Fair enough. But do the Welsh government usually release exam results in June?

@Lulalu

“It's an example of different governments.“

Fair enough. But do the Welsh government usually release exam results in June?

No, and they haven't this year either.

DS got his provisional GCSE results on Wednesday. These were from the school, not the WJEC (exam board). They did this so that they could show what work had been used in the assessments, and show how the teachers had determined each grade, as this has happened in school.

The pupils then have until Friday this week to submit appeals to the school, so that these can be dealt with before the school submits grades and evidence to WJEC. Appeals can only be on the basis of some evident mistake in the determining of the grade, for example if a child has been marked at a C for each individual assessment in a subject but given a D overall. Most likely to happen if there are issues around the weighting of different elements or simple clerical error.

These appeals will be dealt with by the school who will then send everything off to WJEC and results will be released in August. Appeals to the exam board are then possible.

So it's just an extra bit of time for appeals which wouldn't apply in a normal year.

We're not appealing any of DS's results so our expectation is that what he got on Wednesday is what his official results from the exam board will be but that's not absolutely guaranteed.

My DD doing GCSE has sat at least three exams per subject and no idea what marks she got in any of them, or if there is different weighting for some exams. So no grounds for appeal and I don’t know how they can appeal in August if they don’t know the what exactly constituted the grades or the weighting / marks for each assessment.

DS has done three exams per A-level between March and May. No idea of marks for any of them. So how can he appeal if he needed to?

Yet they all come out with the same qualification apparently.

They are releasing center grade in June this year to give pupils/parents two weeks to appeal/challege the grades along specific criteria with exam center/school and grades can go down as well as up.

Then the grades and information are submitted to exam authority - who will moderate the grades - try and ensure some consistancy acorss centers - so grades can go up and down - thse grade will be released at normal time and then their another appal process.

This is how Wales decided to proceed - I didn't follow how they came up with this but I know there were surveys and consultations that ran in wales that were supposed to help come up with a plan or this year though as a parent it seemed very late coming.

In Wales end of YR 10 my DD1 should have sat GCSE exams for many subject around 40% of the final grade. Rest of marks then done in Y11.

End of Y12 is AS-level exams. If they go on to A-level 40% of the mark I belive come from the AS level exams - though not gone through that yet.

Bascilly there are four years Y10,Y11,Y12 and Y13 who normally sit formal exams that count to the final A-level/GCSe grades.

University's are aware of differences and deal with qualifiations
from across the globe not just UK.

DD1 has no choice about sitting Welsh Bac next year as well as A-levels - the welsh government isnsists it equivalent to A-level very few university departments seem to view it that way. So there's an advantage to the English system.

Welsh education has been diverging from English sytem for years - in this case they deciced to put extra appeal system in - so Wednesdays grades are an indication of what to expect in August rather than anything more.