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?

There's secure ways of delivering online exams but it would take time and incur cost to roll out.

Look up remote proctoring, lots of US colleges use it to deliver exams.

They can’t even administer the online teacher training numeracy and literacy tests effectively. No way could they do mass GCSE and A-level sittings.

Hell, there have even been issues with the primary school times tables check.

They can't use mocks. It's not secure enough.

Many parents will kick up a massive stink if they use mocks. They are not fair or scientific.They are done at different times, with different materials and with differing methods of sitting and marking. If they use mocks I want my child to sit them post Christmas having finished the curriculum with the same level of difficulty re materials other kids have sat. I also want clarification re marking.

My dc has a massive wobble( didn’t complete some as upset), first proper exam( which mocks are designed for) and has worked hard to improve since, now getting nearer predicted grades. His mocks were ludicrously off his predicted grades. If he knew they were the real thing whose to say he wouldn’t have pushed through in the exams and completed the papers he didn’t.

Interesting re the virus not apparently affecting children as much. We’ve just had a nasty thing doing the rounds that really seemed contagious amongst adults and took those infected out for 3 or so days. Few of the kids seem to have had it. Didn’t seem to go through them and wipe them out in the same way.

It’s one thing to deliver the exams securely, but quite another to ensure that, when exams are taken invigilated eg at home, that

a) it is the candidate at the keyboard,
b) no banned items (notes, phones etc) are within sight

because not everyone will have a webcam

Surely, if they use mock results they will add a grade on-obviously you'd expect children to improve over the course of a few months?

My sister got better results in her mocks than her actual results! You can’t just arbitrarily go around bumping everyone up a grade just because you think they might go up!

Just heard from a friend in UAE that schools there have closed for the rest of this term.

They might close the schools but still run exams and have the pupils more spread out? So 10 students in a classroom with one invigilator?

Where are they going to get the invigilators from?

And how are they going to guarantee that illness won’t have Wiped the invigilators out?

And most places need two invigilators in each place in case something goes tits up

I don’t know what would work so ive got no helpful suggestions...at least other people are coming up with ideas!

Oh ive made that sound like invigilators are being targeted

I just meant that if lots of people get ill but i guess the hope would be that the illness, at the exams point, had been contained

Rufus presumably if the schools were closed then all the normal teachers could be used for invigilation, assuming they weren’t ill at the time. If people are sensible, maintain good hygiene and self isolate when unwell it won’t contain it but it should slow the spread.

Yeah maybe holly

In our school they would need to be trained...obviously it isnt rocket science and it wouldn’t take long

I am sure when I sat my O-levels and A-levels many years ago our teachers were the invigilators, I certainly remember them being in the room.

Even if they have two sittings, the results of the later sitting wouldn't be ready in time for students taking up university places. Clearing would have been cleared out by the first sitting!

Even those applying to 6th forms would be disadvantaged as the first sitting will have taken the majority of places.

If they delay releasing the first sitting's results, then you are back to the same situation of no-one knowing their results for the new term in September.

how would you be able to do online? A candidate could have a whole team of people working with them to answer questions. Seems ridiculous

There are ways to get round that problem, most lap tops have a web cam. For my assignments I have to sign a statement re plagiarism. You could add a viva done over the phone. An open book assessment would mitigate family and friends helping.

I can see school / uni holidays being extended because someone has to mark the GCSE / A level papers and they will be impacted as much as schools. Maybe not for all years, but year 12 and first year uni.

Universities could also use their own entrance exams for students who have not been able to sit A Levels.

We are already short of exam markers. Even if the kids manage to sit the exams, there’s a good chance that marking will be affected.

I am sure when I sat my O-levels and A-levels many years ago our teachers were the invigilators, I certainly remember them being in the room.

Definitely. I didn't even realise invigilators were employed from outside until my children told me. Certainly universities use lecturers as invigilators. It's not that complicated.

You can't have online exams full stop when the vast majority are used to handwriting everything in exam scenarios.

Most people can't type very well and certainly not as quickly as they handwrite... It might be OK for maths and short answer subjects (if you can fix the cheating issue) but hugely unfair for essay subjects... Just imagine - all the top grades received by those who type fastest rather than are best at English or History...!

Teachers stopped invigilating when it was one of the admin tasks on a list of things we weren’t supposed to do to reduce our workload (along with stuff like putting up displays, bulk photocopying, collecting money for trips).

But it also prevents the sort of cheating that sometimes goes on in the SATs. When teachers are under a lot of pressure to produce results, you don’t want them in the exam hall!

As a governor I have to observe SATs and the procedures the schools use.

Teachers stopped invigilating when it was one of the admin tasks on a list of things we weren’t supposed to do to reduce our workload (along with stuff like putting up displays, bulk photocopying, collecting money for trips).

If schools were shut down they wouldn't be busy doing other tasks though so would have time to invigilate and could do it at other schools.

I am sure when I sat my O-levels and A-levels many years ago our teachers were the invigilators

The fact that you sat O levels indicates you took exams decades ago, things have moved since the 1980s you know., teachers haven't invigilated for years.

I'm going to predict that the GCSEs and A levels will go ahead as normal with maybe some slight tweaks.

Taking grades from mocks would be ludicrous because of the different times and ways they have been delivered. DS did mocks right back in September and bombed due to lack of revision in the summer. Since then he is testing far more at predicted and above, and his school seem to be doing 'mocks' every few weeks so which mocks would they base their assessment on? Predicted grades would be better but one teacher openly admitted to me that they graded them lower to encourage revision. I think that's probably untrue for most but still. It's very worrying.
Many students don't even have a laptop to do an exam on at home, or WiFi, or a quiet environment to take an exam. I can't see that working at all.

They do do them from predicted grades if children miss them because they are ill for example. I still think it would be easier and more accurate to just run them with children more apart and teachers as invigilators though. Even if the invigilators couldn't walk around there would still be less cheating than if they were done online and more accurate than predicted grades.

They don’t do them from predicted grades if you are ill.