GCSE/A Level will be teacher assessed again?

[Lemons1571]

Watching how this is all going, with many 14 day isolations and patchy remote provision, I can’t see next years exams happening. I don’t think the government can either. It’s not a fair playing field. At this rate the year 11/13’s won’t even cover all the content, let alone revision techniques. And this chaotic situation is going to run until at least the spring.

I suspect that’s why primaries are prioritised over secondaries in the current guidance. Keeping primaries open does at least let parents work and help the economy. Keeping secondaries open doesn't (at least short term). Bung them all their predicted grades and say “we tried”. That’s why schools are doing assessments in the next few weeks, to get some data ready.

If nothing has changed with the covid situation come spring, we won’t even be able to get the kids together in a hall to physically sit the exams. They won’t fit while keeping 2m distance. If they hire external halls they’ll need hundreds of trained invigilators (and these are often older people so understandably may not want the job!). What if they have to start a 14 day isolation the day before their first exam? Do they get awarded nothing?

I think Ofqual can’t say this yet, as the affected year groups would just stop working right now. But I am really struggling to see how these exams could fairly happen in 8 months time.

Do we still grade GCSEs on a distribution curve? If so, won’t the difference be even greater? If large swathes of kids who, through no fault of their own, end up getting far lower % on these exams then the distribution graph will naturally lower the required % for 8s and 9s too meaning those kids who benefited from excellent continued provision will be more likely to get grades 7-9. Is this right? Or am I missing something?

When people talk about teacher assessed grades again, I just don't understand what they mean.

A teacher assessed grade for this year made sense. The Y11/Y13s had covered the curriculum and so it was clear that a prediction could be made.

For the current year 11/13s, they have either covered the work or not. If they have, they can sit the exam. If they have not, then what exactly would a teacher assessed grade be? A grade that predicts what the student would have got had they been taught the material? That would be ridiculous and massively unreliable.

I really don't know what the solution is. It's very worrying.

The only thing I can think of to narrow the gap is differential grade boundaries for different areas of deprivation.

Not sure how well that would go down though for the millions of kids in areas of low deprivation that have worked incredibly hard.