My son is crushed. Just crushed.....

[yomellamoHelly]

Year 11. Spanish oral exam on 1st April. Drama performance within next month. Art coursework still to finish off. Written exams as per schedule.
It's all hit him as he looked at his Class Charts this morning and all the work that's due / been set. It's all revision / prepping for upcoming assessments. The enormity of the change has hit him.
I know something will be sorted out eventually, but so so sad for him. He's upstairs sobbing.

It's serious for the school leavers. I think they should run the exams for those children. They should all be able to revise at home. Some may have easier access to the internet than others, but I don't see why all that work and effort should be simply scrapped for everyone. This may well not be sorted. It's quite possible that my daughter will lose not only her Cambridge place but any university place because of this - she messed up one subject in her mocks, and won' t have the chance to meet her offers in the actual exams.

I can empathise with the upset though am surprised at the universality of posts about children devoted to exams

Right? "mourn the loss of their exams"? I would've been delighted at not having to do exams! I'm sure most of my friends would have too!

Angelica, that's what I had in mind too.

Yes I have been telling my son that in 5 years time no will care about his GCSEs To be honest no one cares about GCSEs a year after they've done them...bigger fish to fry!

I can empathise with the upset though am surprised at the universality of posts about children devoted to exams

Really? You're surprised that children are upset that all the hard work they've put in over the last two years will amount to nothing? That final marks may go on mock results which may or may not be as good as the real thing?

The whole of High Schoolis geared towarss GCSEs and now - nothing. Absolutely gutted in this house. So sad for the teachers not being able to see it through either.

I think you can only understand how devastating this feels for parents and teenagers affected if you're a teacher or have lived through a child doing GCSEs or A levels in recent years.

I’m sorry for your son. Does it help to know that we’re all in the same boat, as it were?

Strangely, this would have really benefitted new when I did my a levels a couple of years ago. I worked so hard on the lead up to the exams, straight a*s in coursework and class essays, but was so mentally drained by the actual exams that I messed them up.
Shit for people that aren’t like me though, god knows what the universities are going to do.

Peopleight be imagining their own school days when mocks were the first time exams came to the forefront of their mind or GCSEs were half coursework or all coursework. As someone previously said. All of high school is geared towards GCSEs and the majority who take A levels are geared up the whole two years chasing good university pksces/apprenticeships

MrsJ - I said what I said because I don't agree it will 'amount to nothing'.

Dd is year 11 too and one of the most hardworking kids i've ever known. I thinks she's feeling a mixture of things, gutted not to say goodbye to all of her mates and have the last day ever at school (we are moving to a different county for A-levels). No Reading festival, no results day, no exam prep....it is a rite of passage for every school leaver after 5 years of graft, they will miss and i do feel very sad for them. Fortunately for her she will do very well if they go on predicted grades and mock results but such a shame for those would have done well in the real thing.

That being said this is a whole world we have never encountered so something that cannot be helped. They have every right to feel sad though.

@BloomburgerNothing wrong with parents wanting to celebrate their dc finishing school, I am sure nobody is comparing it to soldiers returning from war......

These are the things that will divide the world into before X and after X, like WW2, like 9-11. These children will forever be those for whom exam results were best estimates, and who missed out on many social aspects of those final months of school. These are rites of passage for our children. My own daughter is year 6, so SaTS are inconsequential compared to GCSE exams. However, she was on course to improve from the mocks, meaning if the mocks are used to finalise her results she won't have realised her potential. And she won't get her leavers events for the milestone of ending primary education. Yes there are bigger problems in the world but she isn't facing them. She's facing this.

And yet over 600,000 people signed a petition demanding schools are closed.....what did you think the result of that would be. You got what you asked for

My dd is thrilled , she was worried about her GCSE's and is relived the stress has gone . She is predicted 8 and 9's so I'm hoping she will be awarded these marks .
On the whole it's not the most important thing is it , it shows just how serious the whole situation is doesn't it . 😱

I think you can only understand how devastating this feels for parents and teenagers affected if you're a teacher or have lived through a child doing GCSEs or A levels in recent years.

I do have - I have one now finishing his first year at uni, one in year 11 and one in year 10. It is a bit sad that she won't, in her words, "get the chance to prove herself" but in the end she has had 5 years of secondary education and will be walking away from it with a piece of paper saying "This girl studied for her GCSEs and did reasonably well". It is all she NEEDS. The 11 A*s she was hoping for are certainly now out of reach (she has been off ill a lot this year so has missed a lot of classroom assessments, and spent most of her mocks crying and not writing) but life goes on. I trust that the school and exam board will be fair - and if her results aren't good enough for what she wants to do she can always take a year out and resit them.

It is sad, but it is not a tragedy.

@JKScot4 if I didn’t have a child through this situation then I probably wouldn’t care less either but when you have a 16 yr old who has worked their ass off on art folios and studying for no one to assess then it’s disappointing for them.

Last year dd was predicted a C for English, she studied and studied and got an A in her exam. So how’s would that be fair for this year?

It’s ok to be sad, angry disappointed and upset but the hand writing, “heartbreak” and dramatic devastation from the adults is ridiculous.

@copperheart that's only true if they pass. I used to teach Adult Ed- loads of people out there who have to go back and get Maths and English so they can get on the course they want / get the job they want / progress in their career / not get sacked (TAs, for example). GCSEs open a lot of doors.

I'm a secondary teacher now. For the record, I've been in tears over this too. So have my students. If you think we're being dramatic you can fuck off.

Shit @copperheart that second paragraph wasn't aimed at you, just the first bit!

Luckily DD has excellent predicted grades all 7,8 and 9s. But she has still done so much more work and preparation even since her mocks because she's aiming for Oxbridge so wanted to increase how many 9s she got. She's gutted and feels so flat.

Agree. Emotion is expected. I just don't know what to say .

Markers of GCSE and A level papers are faceless and have absolutely no emotional connection with those that have sat the exams that they are marking. They are able to evaluate and score with pure balance. This is absolutely not the case with teachers evaluating on predicted grades students with which they have had a close connection with over the last few years. No amount of "professional judgment" is going to outweigh the prospect of awkward exchanges in September with disgruntled students or parents.
Teachers will want to feel good about themselves and will grade kids higher than they should. They just will. Its human nature.I am sure that teachers are getting buttered up by anxious parents as we speak. What a wonderful job you are doing, how difficult it must be for you, you are a wonderful teacher...blah, blah...
The kids should be sitting their tests that they have prepared for in may - jun. Art, DT and the rest can go off predictions if you like but plain and simple exams should be sat and marked in the usual way - its the ONLY fair way to do this.... Cant put the genie back in the bottle though.....