Thread 31 Covid Cohort - Hopping through Easter and Revision

[OrangeCinnamonCroissant]

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.

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 30

I've made this one a little bit earlier as things are so busy, at home and on thread, so please feel free to use up previous thread first

For A Level, it's not board specific whether you get a mark or not. It's Ofqual/QCA rules.

The marks you are finding online might be scaled and grade boundaries move all the time for NEAs so I would urge extreme caution !

JCQ sorry!

Funnily enough we have just had an email about this very thing!

Noted@Piggywaspushed my comment was about DS's school grading of essays just so I'm not confusing anyone.

For clarity, DS was given marks, not grades, but as grade boundaries vary massively by subject, we just checked what the mark would have meant in 2019 from the published grade boundaries.

@Heifer DS went through his video to identify times when skills were used. He said he may have missed some higher skills and had not realised quite how important they were, so he would say it is definitely work looking for those higher skills. He is also AQA.

Sorry if I have induced any anxiety surrounding NEAs ! I am aware that terming the outcome around a 'B' isn't helpful as grades aren't given ! It was just in a more general sense. I guess I was concentrating/celebrating on the fact that the Assessment Objectives that DD had to meet to get her mark are also used in the exam - she wasn't quite meeting them before at the level she wanted to, now she is , this is evidenced by what she has done in her NEA and her recent homework and it is very encouraging going forward . Being a 'B' grade student can be a bit discouraging in many ways 'fate of the gods' and all that.

Now just to get Sociology Research Methods cracked !

Hmmm I was about to hunt down AQA Geography Coursework boundaries....maybe I should just go make a cup of tea instead...

@Wheresthebeach filestore.aqa.org.uk/over/stat_pdf/AQA-A-LEVEL-RL-GDE-BDY-JUN-2019.PDF

I just took a simple approach - for Geography 236/300 (79%) was A*, 204/300 (68%) was A. Should all be lower this year due to generous grades.

Cheers x

Dd says she thought her coursework was better than ‘just scraped an A’ so she’s disappointed and is going to fail her A Levels 😫She’s not feeling well though which doesn’t help. On the plus side, she’s decided what to do about celebrating her 18th, which is in half term, without having to mix friendship groups who don’t mix - so that’s good!

DS has basically been told by his history teacher that he can/ should appeal, which is weird!

Happy birthday to mini @Piggywaspushed

Happy Birthday to @Piggywaspushed DS hope he has a good day.

No firm or insurance picked as far as I am aware by DS yet. But in other news he passed his driving test this morning which was a bit of good news at least.

Happy 18th to miniPiggy!

Congratulations on the driving test @Nard75.

The NEAs sound very stressful.

Congratulations on your DS's driving test @Nard75 ! 🚗🍾🎉

Happy birthday to Piglet @Piggywaspushed and congratulations to @Nard75 ’s DS.
DD had her raw score today for her EPQ, 41/50 and seems fairly downcast about it as she’d had such positive feedback from her teacher along the way. She needs an A to meet the lower grade offer for RHUL. Sigh!

Happy birthday piglet and congratulations nard!

DD came home from school in a very good mood - her name had been put on the smiley face board in biology 😆 I thought that sort of thing stopped in primary school but she seemed delighted about it. She's got a party tonight so hopefully the good mood will continue 🤞

Congratulations to your ds @Nard75 ! Freedom!

What is ds supposed to appeal about @Piggywaspushed ? His NEA mark?

Sorry dd is disappointed too @cariadambyth - but wouldn’t that sort of mark be an A?

What a lovely start to her weekend @Seeline . I hope she has a super time at the party.
DD doesn’t seem to think her mark will fall into the A band as , according to her, grade boundaries are notoriously high in EPQs. I know I’ve mentioned them before but her very clever ( and nice) friends all got upper 40s so she’s had the lowest in her friendship group, again!
Hey Ho, a nice long weekend!

@cariadambyth which board for your DDs EPQ?

Great news @Nard75 well done to your DS.

We haven’t managed book DS another driving test yet after his fail at the beginning of the week

@ProggyMat it’s AQA

@cariadambyth DD’s EPQ was with AQA too !
She handed her’s in last May 😱 and was given her ‘raw mark’ at the start of Yr13 when it was submitted to the board for moderation.
The mark and grade has since been confirmed by AQA.
A mark of 41 for your DD would be an A - subject to moderation - but I’m sure all will be well, well done to your DD!

That’s so reassuring, thank you @ProggyMat . It’s a roller coaster this parenting lark isn’t it!