Year 11s shouldn’t have finished school early

[solarlights]

www.theguardian.com/education/2021/jun/03/schools-should-not-send-exam-year-pupils-home-early-says-ofsted-head

My DD went on exam leave on April 31st only attending school for the exams that were supposedly cancelled —but not—
They finished completely on 24th May despite missing months and months of school over their GCSE course, so what’s all this about? Our year 11s have been totally let down.

OK to make my points again. Firstly, I am not teacher bashing as I know teachers have worked very hard this year and taking on the role of the exam boards has been ridiculous. I also understand why they would be relieved that year 11 have gone and they can invest in teaching other year groups.
But stating that year 11s are glad to be finished is using a lazy argument to justify cutting them loose. Maybe some are glad to finish. Some are not. Some are too depressed to care. For anyone saying this happens every year, remember that this year they've only been back in school for 2 months. They were still trying to get back into routine. Added to this we have the very wide disparity in what schools are offering after half term, from proper taster weeks to absolutely nothing.

I can only speak for my own DC and those I work with in college. I feel that they are lost. Of course they will see friends and get exercise. Talk about stating the bleeding obvious. But wider opportunities are very few and far between, and I don't believe they 'need' the long break, as they may have in the past, because they've only just gone back anyway.
The PP who suggested that it is easy to get a job - I genuinely suggest you try and find some 16 year olds who have managed to get jobs this summer. Yes, there are loads of hospitality jobs out there but they do not want 16 year olds and we have the rejection letters to prove it.

The TAG process and evidence used has been different everywhere. This cannot be changed now and the majority of students will have done better from TAGs than actual exams.

At DD sixth form, Yr 13 being off will enable year 12 to be in school full time after half term. They have been part time since September, as the building is too small to have both year groups in at once with any kind of social distancing. I cant imagine Ofsted would want them to keep this going to enable year 13 to be in. Ive got 2 DDs, one in each year, and i def think yr 13 should be home so yr 12 can go in.
My DD1 has just finished A levels, and is happy to spend time reading, working, knitting, walking, socialising for the next few months. Her school did manage to finish the syllabus in the subject she wants to study at uni, but she will try and do some extra reading.
I imagine her teachers will need the time to mark and collate all their results as well as focus on yr12 mocks.

@motherrunner
Now I’m worried. My DDs school also do OCR for English but were not told paper content or given cribs or have texts. If she had I have no doubt she would have done brilliantly as it would surely be hard not to.

In all honesty solar, if you are talking about English specifically, most A Level boards included a hefty amount of open book. GCSE is ridiculous in its emphasis on rote learning. Allowing open book for TAGs is more like an A Level exam.

My school is basing TAGs on recent assessments and year 11 mocks. Anyone who has had extenuating circumstances will be treated separately and extra evidence considered. It ahs now been announced that schools need to have bundles of evidence ready, in case exam boards want to scrutinise it. In case! More workload. If anyone could see schools thrashing about wildly below water level they'd realise why year 11s and 13s being on site after end of May would get in the way of what we are being asked to do.

@motherrunner your school sounds great. My ds has been told the majority of her marks will come from the exams she did in May which is concerning when I read different schools approaches on here. My dd was out of school self isolating 3 times in the autumn term and as far as I know no concession will be made for that.

No jobs for young people around here either to be fair. However, it is really not teachers' faults if parents can't occasionally extract DCs form their bedrooms. that reminds me of parents' evenings when lots of parents expect me to solve for them the issue that their child games all night...

I accept some students are suffering poor MH. However, I don't think this is a new problem in society at all. In many cases school causes or exacerbates MH issues, too. Ramming a lot of 16 9and 18) year olds back into school in stuffy classrooms for what is essentially a few extra weeks is a sticking plaster approach. Not surprised at that from Ofsted mind.

No concessions for covid related absence unless whole cohort affected. That's Ofqual rules.

Mines got 2 more weeks to go yet so not all schools have finished early

What are they doing hopping out of interest?

Foosterin
Can you say what you think schools should do? Please reflect these constraints:

1. Children who know their work won't count towards any more exams and therefore will either misbehave or simply won't turn up. Do schools make the additional work voluntary? If so, how do they monitor the whereabouts of the kids and how do they know how many will turn up on a day to day basis?
2. Existing timetable. The teachers have their year 11 lessons scattered around the existing timetable. They cannot come off their existing timetables to work on special days of work skills etc for Y11 as the other year groups will be disrupted.
3. Teachers in secondary are specialist in their area. They do not necessarily have skills to teach other subjects in a meaningful higher level way. If a child is no longer going to be studying their own subject, it is unlikely they will want to engage in further lessons of this subject.
4. Enrichment activities cost money. Schools don't have any. Many are struggling to pay for the extra costs of cleaning etc due to covid.
5. Work experience is not available as companies are not willing to disrupt their businesses further by having a school leaver in.
6. Teachers are busy dealing with the exam evidence and assessments admin for Y11 as well as the normal summer term stuff of reports and timetabling.

Please tell me what you think could have been done with all this in mind? I don't disagree that it would have been lovely to offer them something extra but I cannot see what this something could be in practical terms. If this was meant to happen, schools should have been given much more advance notice and some additional money to provide this.

The current year 11s have had a shit time for sure.
And this Summer is hardly going to be the usual rite of passage.
But do they really fancy going back in the classroom?
I’m not convinced mine would have relished that.

@motherrunner holy shit you let your grammar school kids have the paper content, the text AND crib notes?

I know we had no guidance but my Year 11s had none of that. We assessed them as they would have been assessed, just on less content. I think that's what most schools did. I can't believe you've got away with that tbh.

Mine has finished just before half term but as he was ill for a couple of assessments he may have to go in
Our school is also offering some english: maths for those that want it after
Its only a couple weeks earlier than normal finishing

@motherrunner I’ll try thank you! Wish I’d not seen this as I’d assumed schools were taking similar approaches.

We had the text and could make notes when I sat GCSEs a billion years ago. Made so much more sense - it was a backwards step making it a memory test (Separate issue though.)

@TropicalFairyCake definitely a separate issue - it was like that when I first started teaching.

To be fair, this is the DfE's fault for not giving clear guidance. This disparity was always going to happen. I just feel like I've let my students down now.

Our year 11s have been totally let down.

No, they've been prioritised to the detriment of all other secondary year groups and the wellbeing and workload of their teachers.

This without a doubt.

LAST year’s Year 11 were let down.

Yes its a completely different skill isnt it - is crazy that schools haven't been given guidance so schools have done this differently.

Ofsted really don't know kids, do they? I've been teaching for 20 years. Sadly, growing up in a system of constant testing, most kids will only do work if it 'counts'. As soon as they found out when the assessments would be finished they were asking what the point of staying in school was. Many struggled to keep focused until the end of the assessments. Behaviour deteriorated.

If Ofsted wanted kids to stay in school, the assessment deadline shouldn't have been made the 18th June.