Corona Cohort: Statements Scripted, Grades Predicted

[Monkey2001]

This is a thread for supporting all young people post GCSEs 2020, regardless of their educational setting. It is respectfully requested that all are supportive and helpful to each other. If you want to start a debate, e.g state vs private, please don't within this thread. Please also be sensitive when responding to threads about grades.

Some of us have been here since first thread back in yr10, some will be new. Everyone has been friendly and helpful in the past. Everyone is welcome. It is hoped this will continue.

From OrangeCinnamonCocktail:

Our DS/DD may go down various paths (such as employment, apprenticeships, higher ed) We have decided for anyone interested they will most likely find us within the Further Ed board.

Previous thread - www.mumsnet.com/Talk/further_education/4339233-Thread-19-Corona-Cohort-Enrolling-on-Year-13-hopefully-NOT-unlucky-for-some?pg=1

Agree Delphi - in particular I think it's madness to keep the exam content secret until February, when the whole point is that some schools will struggle to deliver the whole syllabus. Presumably some will guess right and will have everything done by Feb, and some will guess wrong and have to get entire topics done quickly.

Wales's plan comes out next week and will be interesting to see. Surely everywhere will be the same, but then again I wouldn't be surprised if Wales has a more gradual return to 2019 levels. Their approach so far seems to be more sympathetic to students than England's. (We already know what's being examined, for example.)

but that the reduced content/heads up to topics went a little way to mitigate?

It's not til Feb 7th though . If we had that info now , it would be useful! From a teacher pov there is a lack of trust built into that timeline. There are also soem inequities as soem subjects already know they are getting reduced content, and what that entails. Grr.

Agree Delphi, it is all very unfair, but it is the unfairness between state schools and not state v private that I find the most puzzling (I know many will disagree) because at least with private schools you know it’s because they are paying, but state schools should be equal opportunity for everyone. I’ve never understood how some state schools have amazing facilities and lots of teachers and others not. I used to live near an area where there was an outstanding secondary (albeit CofE ) and 15mins walk away an awful secondary in special measures one. The same primary schools fed into both. Same local area, quite middle class. There was also a CofE secondary in my immediate area and it was always in special measures.

I wouldn’t disagree with you on that Shimy. DS’s current college is state and absolutely superb. His last school very different and I am sitting here brushing up on A level syllabus for my degree subject as am about to start helping 2 people he was at in primary school.

Feb 7th ? Nice and soon then...

Ok I understand Piggy. Playing devils advocate for a sec, is it those subjects the Govt don’t see ‘as important’ (like arts/humanities) where there’s a heads up and stem subjects are waiting till Feb? I don’t know btw so just interested...

Is it not good to bring the grades down a bit? I have seen so many parents boasting on social media dd/Ds got 10 GCSEs at grade 9. I don't know whether all these dc's would have all 9's had they taken exams. I don't know many who took A levels to know whether it was the same. The few I know all received A's or A* but possibly would have anyway. But as long as this years students are all marked in the same way, then surely it'll be fair. Or am I completely wrong?

I think part of the problem icanbe is that our lot are competing not just with each other but with 2021 students with grades in hand. You'd hope that universities would try to take that into account. But if they have one place available and a 2021student with AAA and a 2022 student with predicted AAB to choose from, which will they go for?

Also we don't know yet whether there is parity across the UK in approach to grade inflation / deflation.

@icanbewhatiwant I think that will be as close to fair as it possibly can be in these circumstances.

@Volterra That’s what I mean. There should be a lot more focus on equalising state provision but I’m sure government love all the negative attention on private schools as it takes the heat off them.

I am sure the private/state divide will grow on 2019, would be willing to put significant money on it! All we can hope is that all schools get grades at least in line with 2019. I had an idea for a safety net which I would love OFQUAL to consider. When the results are in you could compare average UCAS tariff per student for 2022 and 2019. The vast majority should be well above 2019, but where an exam centre has results lower than 2019 there could be a moderation uplift for those centres. If I was doing it, would be managed in consultation with the exam centre. Maybe the universities will look at this sort of data when deciding whether to accept slipped grades.

Re lost learning, a lot of subjects at university don't really use A level content, Newcastle will accept any 3 subjects for medicine (could be music, drama, art). Universities have always spent a chunk of the first year making sure that the foundation they want is in place, at least for STEM, as students have studied different syllabuses in various countries. I saw a post somewhere about someone who was fustrated that the first year of Physics at St Andrews was all stuff he had done, even though it is rated as one of the best in the world for Physics.

The disparity in state education is huge. Obviously you would always expect private schools to do better as most are selective and people would not pay unless they were getting something worth having!

I agree with Delphi that it is kids in crowded homes with poor access to technology who have really lost out. A teacher friend in a school with a lot of disadvantaged students said they did almost nothing when not in school, their learning went backwards and they had forgotten how to sit still. Some were faking Covid tests to get more time off.

I think DS's school did well, but their policy was to have Y12/Y13 half on line and half F2F, so not in together, so that they did not have to use the smaller classrooms. That meant that with a couple of isolations and the Spring lock down they were F2F for less than 1/3 of the year. Some subjects were worse affected than others, we were lucky.

I was just thinking about all the unseen barriers to university that exist after forking out £30 for a revision book just now that covers only the second year of the A level syllabus.

Also the cost of visiting universities really mounts up. Ours are lucky as whatever our varying financial positions as we’ve said before, the fact that we are here discussing education puts them at an advantage.

I think in an ideal world I would like to see Education, Health and Social Care taken out of party politics and all sides of the political spectrum coming together with long term strategies that will be worked towards and not changed at the drop of a hat.

Everything feels like a real mess at the moment, I just hope something good comes out of it all long term.

I think the fairest approach for this year's Y11s and Y13s would be for the DfE to admit that not everyone had the same opportunities to learn in 2020/21, that there was huge variety in what was offered by schools and in pupils' ability to access it. Then to declare that it would be very unfair if some students were disadvantaged because of this, and then to decide that no Y10/Y12 material will be included in the 2022 exams. The exam content could be from the Y11/Y13 syllabus only. And we keep our fingers crossed that schools get a decent run of things this year, without lengthy closures.

@singingstones yes...one would hope the universities will take that into consideration.

The only thing is...have teachers given their predicted grades going by the previous years TAG's? Or going by how the grades will be if marked down a bit? If the former then many will not get their predicted grades. Our school give a target grade based on gcse grades. But as they didn't actually sit GCSEs then they cannot know that grade. Ds's mock grades are higher than his target grade in 2 subjects.

Ds hasn't gone in today. The history lesson this afternoon has been cancelled as the teacher is ill, the business studies teacher is also not in today, so it was to be a revision lesson. He is meant to go in and sit in the study centre the rest of the day. He finally bought the letter home this week for me to sign so he can come home or stay home on days he has no lessons or afternoon free. He can only come home the signed days, so if a lesson has been cancelled like today, he can't come home. Almost all his mates are off with bad colds. Ds3 has friends with colds too. Both ds's ok at the moment 🤞

Icanbe UCAS predictions are still supposed to be aspirational but achievable, which is what our school does. They are always higher overall than actual grades, but in 2021 the awarded grades were closer to predicted grades than usual. For Medicine most med schools will only interview if you are predicted the offer grades, but in normal years 40% of offer holders don't achieve the grades.

We also have a lot of unwell teachers. The head of sixth form sent out a sad message that they were unable to send out Y13 information video (they decided not to do a F2F event) because only 1 of the members of staff presenting was in school, all others were ill.

@Volterra is your DS doing both the MAT and the TMUA? I was under the impression they were on the same day and you had to do one or the other.

Nard75 he seems to think he is ! He says one on the 3rd and one on the 4th November. I can’t tell you if it is actually true...

Nice summary of the exams decisions this year from school:

Art and Photography will now be assessed on the student's portfolio only, and not a controlled exam task
The requirements for evidence of practical skills in sciences to achieve the practical endorsement has been reduced to become more manageable
Exam boards will provide advance information about the focus of the content of the exams for all A level subjects to support students’ revision by 28th February 2022. We don't yet know what level of detail this will be for particular subjects.
Exam boards have been asked, when setting the timetable for 2022 exams, to ensure that there is at least a 10 day gap between exams in the same subject to reduce the risk of students missing all exams in a subject. As long as a student manages to do one of the examined components they can be awarded a grade.
If circumstances change and the planned measures are not sufficient to allow exams to proceed, they will maintain stability by awarding grades through a Teacher Assessed process similar to that used in 2021.
The proportion of students awarded higher grades, which has increased for the last two years, will reduce again, but only half way back towards the normal levels last seen in 2019, before returning fully to that level the following year.
The results will be released this summer on 18th August for A level and BTEC qualifications, and on 25th August for GCSEs .

He has said he had an email from College asking what he wanted to be entered for. We asked friend who is Cambridge graduate who said do all 3 then you mitigate the bad day scenario. He went a bit pale and decided with the timings he would prefer leave STEP which is also harder I think and his college have historically done a bit better in MAT than STEP ( maybe because it is a bit easier?! ) so that’s where he is at as fair as I am aware.

Just looked and MAT is 3rd and MTUA is 4th November I think.

@Volterra DS1 seems to think both MAT and TMUA are on the same day. He was going to do the MAT but after doing practice questions he feels he won't do well and because he wants Warwick as first choice has decided on the TMUA which he is finding easier. After reading comments on another thread re Warwick I am a bit worried but I suppose there are good and bad points for all universities.

@Nard75 I saw that on the other thread about Warwick , it will still be really popular though I suspect as last figures I heard were they get 20 applicants per place.

Another reason he decided to do TMUA as well I think is because if that goes wrong you don’t actually have to put it down on your UCAS form so he felt he has nothing to lose.

Where else is your DS putting down ? Maths was a bit difficult this year with some rejections where maybe wouldn’t expect eg. Offered Oxford, rejected by Imperial, Bristol and Bath. Know of someone who got absolutely no offers but has landed a really well paid job and applying again grades in hand. Bristol and Bath didn’t do a fair few of their offers or rejections until May.

I am wondering what will happen and getting him to put down one that should be fairly safe. I hope..

@Volterra This is why DS1 wants to do the TMUA because it doesn't need to be put on application. He decided against applying for Oxford because felt it was too much pressure. I think apart from Warwick maybe Birmingham. What is the deadline for submitting UCAS applications is it January? I think TMUA results come out 29 November.

Mid January I think so still a fair bit of time. Birmingham probably going to be one of DS’s choices too.

The proportion of students awarded higher grades, which has increased for the last two years, will reduce again, but only half way back towards the normal levels last seen in 2019, before returning fully to that level the following year.

I wonder if universities who have increased their standard offers in recent weeks are going to take this into consideration?

@Nard75 It's 26th of January.

Thanks @Shimy