GCSE's 2021

[barbites]

Dd is due to do her GCSE's next year. As of 15th June she will have 2 hours a week at school (no teaching) and I cannot see things being back to normal in September. There will be no mocks to use as a guide. Will this cohort of children actually get a qualification?

I have the same worry.. We are in Scotland and nicola sturgeon has stated that from August it will be blended learning at all levels.
Ie 1.5 or 2 days at school and the rest at home. Ds is due to sit national 5 and I just can't see how it's going to work
All this oh the kids are all in the same boat.. Bullshit. Some kids will cope great with distance learning.. Others won't.. No matter how good or bad their home circumstances.. Some kids need teacher input..

I think we need to bite the bullet and get the kids back full time..

But nicola sturgeon not even considering that

Getting quite a few emails from e.g. music tuition for GCSE, DT about project dealines and how important to meet them, etc etc feels a bit like being a PA...as well as emails for catch up for google classroom too

I guess it replaces the usual mental load of clubs / forms / payments and trips

Ah I see ours is quite oversubscribed etc inner city also but different area so think they are quite compliant but maybe a few who just don;t have the computers or need more support. They also so a catch up week on normal times at the end of summer usually too for these students while others stay home as well.

I’m assuming subjects like Geography and History together with English Lit maybe easy to tweak so have optional questions. But the sciences, maths and languages may be tricky as I assume quite a few of the questions/papers will involve various techniques etc rather than a distinct topic. Also am I right in thinking the papers have already been written.

Yes they will be written already!

@Hercwasonaroll Yep definitely. Inner city with lots of parents who don't value education. Difficult to get them in during normal times

Do you think some of those students will return to school when things are back to normal or is there a chance they will drop out altogether now?

Very real chance some won't return for y11 sadly. I predict we will have more attendance issues than ever when we go back, and nothing legally we can do about it.

Obviously we work with many agencies and pastoral staff to encourage students to attend but it's not easy. The more they miss, the more anxious they are to return.

@Hercwasonaroll that's so sad. Must be incredibly tough.

I would like to know as a teacher! I guess there will be a lot of changes before anyone with power makes a decision. I could place money on the fact that everyday teachers will not be consulted

@puffinandkoala

not all schools study the same texts at the same time, so there would need to be choice of questions to answer

which isn't remotely difficult to organise on a question paper. If for example the set texts are An Inspector Calls, Macbeth and Jekyll & Hyde, you put questions on the paper about all of them, but the students only have to choose to answer questions about two of the texts. It really is that easy. I am sure someone will try to tell me that it isn't, but it is. If an exam paper is usually 90 minutes with 3 questions you make it 60 minutes with 2 questions.

Might work for English. Would be impossible in Science as the boundaries are more indistinct and kids would have real trouble identifying which topics they've been taught.

Might work for English. Would be impossible in Science as the boundaries are more indistinct and kids would have real trouble identifying which topics they've been taught

Yeah, and it needs to be a single solution for all subjects otherwise it’s going to be very difficult to make it fair across students studying different options.

They may need to change the assessment entirely for next year, depending on how long this goes on for.

If exams go ahead then maybe pushing them back into July, to buy back some time. Grade boundaries, teacher assessment...lots to consider.

@SmileEachDay

Might work for English. Would be impossible in Science as the boundaries are more indistinct and kids would have real trouble identifying which topics they've been taught

Yeah, and it needs to be a single solution for all subjects otherwise it’s going to be very difficult to make it fair across students studying different options.

They may need to change the assessment entirely for next year, depending on how long this goes on for.

If exams go ahead then maybe pushing them back into July, to buy back some time. Grade boundaries, teacher assessment...lots to consider.

They'll have to do something, for sure. I can easily see assessed grades like this year (I hope not, I hated doing it, it's too much responsibility).

Exams could be a bit later, but I would have thought they'd struggle for markers as normally people do it in gained time and there won't be any. Many won't want to do it in the summer holidays, surely?

Beawillalwaysbetopdog

Yep, it’s a really tough one - they’ll have to consider the avalanche of “mitigating circumstances” applications that would happen as a result of this interruption also.

Bea it's doesn't work like that in English Lit either. They have one paper on set text and Shakespeare and the other on set text, anthology poetry and unseen poetry. Only one question on the set texts (of which there are lots of choices). Cutting one of these is impossible as schools will have studied different combinations of texts.

Also teachers shouldn't be marking in gained time. I am a marker and have never done this (it is also against the board guidelines)

Pieceofpurplesky

In English lit they could reduce the questions though - so students only have to answer EG modern text OR poetry and everyone does Unseen....

But I don’t think they’ll do that because it doesn’t work for loads of subjects.

@Pieceofpurplesky

Also teachers shouldn't be marking in gained time. I am a marker and have never done this (it is also against the board guidelines)

I know, but some at my school do, even refusing to do the tasks we've all been given until they've finished it.

Im a secondary teacher and we are working really hard to cover the course remotely and in the best way possible. Live lessons are very very difficult when teachers have their own children at home. Keyworker provision for teachers has been variable in some areas. Also it is hugely unrealistic to get a whole class in the live lesson for many reasons. I am doing a few and feeding back as much as possible on work set. The problem is op that however this pans out student self motivation and effort is going to matter more thsn ever x

Smile they could drop unseen but that doesn't really make a huge difference in the grand scheme of things.

Bea we would be fired for that. I hope your school is a rarity in this!

I am finding mine is getting on with work but others in the case start gaming etc and inviting to join in...as in about 2pm for example- sometimes it seems the whole family is on as I heard DS saying hello X's dad, X's brother! etc

It's really easy to get distracted when the work is online also. If they were in school obviously this wouldn't be happening. He did mention a couple of other friends were not going in so maybe will try and get him to limit it. Peer pressure, not easy.

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