To wonder what will happen if exams are impacted by Corona

[B1gbluehouse]

Starting to think they aren’t going to want halls filled with 100s of kids if it spreads more.

What will happen to GCSE and A level students if they can’t take their exams?

Very good point @seeline including many apprenticeships

@LotKell my daughter has also been told they will sit them over the summer holidays if th have to close the school

my daughter has also been told they will sit them over the summer holidays if they have to close the school

This is 100% conjecture. As yet there are no firm plans for what will happen and if there are they haven't been shared with teachers. It's pure guesswork.

if my daughter doesn’t get the GCSE grades she requires for the A-Levels she needs for the Medical Uni courses she wants it will have an impact.

Every single student will be affected at the same time if GCSEs are disrupted, and as she will be competing for places with her own cohort, this will undoubtedly be taken into account.

if my daughter doesn’t get the GCSE grades she requires for the A-Levels she needs for the Medical Uni courses she wants it will have an impact

Unless your child is the only person not taking their GCSEs that's irrelevant. If the whole exam system is disrupted things will adapt, new procedures will come in, we certainly wont have a year's gap in medical students, that just wouldn't happen.

My concern is if it impacts students doing their degrees it could have hugely negative consequences that could impact their entire lives, as the difference between a 2:1 and a 3rd can be the difference between accreditation and a pointless degree, likewise it can impact the possible choices for post graduate study where being accepted into the right institution for your needs and aims going forward is often critical and make or break a future career.

I think universities are well set up for online teaching if it came to that. Unlike many of the teachers on here (it seems) academics all have computers and most are used online teaching. Work is usually submitted online as well. I'm not sure how they would do exams but I'm sure there are ways around it.

I’m of course talking about the whole cohort... my response was to the poster suggesting GCSE results in general are not important because no one has ever asked her about her straight A’s. Therefore less of an impact than those students taking A-Levels or completing their degrees. All students whatever level they are at are just as important.

@coconuttelegraph why would my child be the only one not taking GCSEs ? Surely the whole year group would be in the same position is that blindly bloody obvious, no?

I really don't think students need to worry about their degrees, I'm not an academic but isn't it commen sense that unis will moderate based on what they know has been taught.

Exactly @FAQs , you don't really think that a whole cohort of year 11s will be denied a chance to do medicine do you? Obviously if needed there will be a different system this year.

What exactly are you worried about?

There will be the same number of university and sixth form places as ever. Grade-based offers are a way of making sure they have the numbers they need - if everyone's grades are lowered those offers will be reduced accordingly.

Everyone’s grades won’t be lower, because the grade boundaries are set to ensure parity with previous years’ grades.

The top x percent in the cohort will still get a 9 or A* even if they only need 60% to do so because the whole cohort performed craply.

That’s a really odd part of the english exam system, I always think. In the Irish system you’re graded on percentages only, with no reference to how anyone else has performed.

I don't know anything about the Irish system but fixed grade boundaries don't always work as you can't guarantee that every paper is of equal difficulty or doesn't contain an error or unclear question. If there's an error that means you can't answer a question would everyone fail that year?

Yes it would, but I’ve never heard of it happening. The equal difficulty thing doesn’t seem to be an issue either, presumably having it independently vetted at the outset works just fine.
Nobody’s ever complained at any possible injustice that I’m aware of.

I know it's OT but I'm interested @thisismytimetoshine do Irish students sit GCSEs and do they have the same 1 to 9 system that we have in England now?

In the Irish system you’re graded on percentages only, with no reference to how anyone else has performed

Unfortunately this is not the case. If there are too many students being awarded H1's, for example, the lower H1 scores will be downgraded to a H2. 6th year DD has been told this over and over: aim for a High H1 to protect your points

There’s a GCSE equivalent. A Levels are completely different, more of an advanced version of GCSE’s with a minimum of six subjects taken, but typically seven or more.
There has been a new numerical grading system introduced (haven’t lived there for quite some time so not overly familiar with it) but 1 is the highest, not the lowest.
It’s still based on a percentages scale, though.
90 to 100 is Grade 1,
80

Oh, just seen your post, Fickle . I really have been gone too long! In my day it was A, A+ and A- and the rest.

Now I'm confused

@FickleTickle seems to be saying the opposite thing which I have to say makes more sense, imo it's always fairest to grade according to the cohort.

What about those of us sitting A Level exams as independent candidates?!

What about those of us sitting A Level exams as independent candidates?!

I'd imagine that like everyone else you wait and see what happens while studying on the basis that they will go ahead. I don't see how or why you'd do anything but that although your exclamation mark suggests that maybe I'm missing something.

@cocconuttelegraph people keep going on about mocks, how schools have 12 years of records, predicted grades etc - adult independent candidates don’t have that, they’ve been totally forgotten about but need to be planned for too.

OK, poopy it would have been clearer if you'd said that in your post

I've missed anyone suggesting that exam grades would be based on 12 years of records, that's so crazy it would never happen, no one thinks exam boards would do that do they?

I despair!

@Michaelbaubles it was actually one of her teachers who told her this