University 2020 :4: The wait for grades and better days ahead

[MillicentMartha]

New thread for us. Interesting times.

Old thread here

Just want to say bathroom cleaning lesson done, was actually impressed with how ds actually rolled up his sleeves and got stuck in after the initial fuss and gagging !

@specialted that's made me laugh!
DD1 has a part time hospitality job at a local weddings type venue. Part of her duties, shift dependent, includes preparing rooms for the next guests so she knows how to clean bathrooms. Has she cleaned any of ours since she's been off school? Hmm.

Done student finance and applied for accommodation at insurance JUST IN CASE.

I think one of the most horrible things about this is that the DC feel they are in direct competition with their friends for their grades - a completely different atmosphere to the normal mutual encouragement or 'Us against the Examiner' feeling. I'm sure that wasn't Ofqual's intention, but it's an unpleasant consequence.

Yes, the ranking will have had that effect. I was discussing how handing in work after the 20th May might be a problem. Some students may not be able to hand work in perhaps because of sibling child care responsibilities or lack of computers/internet access at home or even illness or other reasons. Apparently they must not be disadvantaged due to this according to Ofqual.

In that case, how can any work that is handed in by their classmates be used by teachers? It must not give those that hand work in any advantage because that will immediately cause the other students a disadvantage. If a student goes up in the ranking, others must necessarily go down. I imagine it can be used as evidence that the teachers’ original grade and ranking is justified, but mustn’t raise or lower a student’s ranking.

MillicentMartha
I agree with you. I can see how work /assessments set after 20 March could provide additional evidence to justify a grade / ranking based on work /assessments set before 20 March.

But as you say, if work / assessments set after 20 March are used to justify moving a pupil up in the ranking then the school would be moving other pupil(s) down, and this would not be allowed under the guidelines nor would it be fair when some pupils have easier home study conditions and more support, and when others may be ill, caring for ill relatives or suffering family bereavement.

Thanks Ironoaks and I meant 20th March, of course. DS has yet to hand in his CS NEA. Though it was all but finished by 20th anyway and his teacher had already seen it as a WIP.

DD said exactly that. She is working continuously but said that she's got to be advantaged by that so others are therefore disadvantaged in that they are not advantaged too!

Birmingham didn't hesitate to defer her entry. She emailed the contact email address she had who asked if she definitely wanted to defer as she would forward it to someone to make the change. They changed it on track within the hour. However, she didn't defer her insurance. We overlooked this as we're pretty sure she'll be in to her firm. Should we now do this?

I'm not sure whether those working now are advantaged because they can only perform I assume as well as their schools previous A level results when adjusted for the same schools cohorts GCSE results.. So if there is a significant change the school would need to justify this and I'm sure the exam boards would not look at recent work since school closure in a positive light given that the work may have been open book or assistance received. I would have thought that this could have a more detrimental effect with the schools results being heavily moderated.

I do feel for the DC in big classes and sixth form centres...ranking can't be easy.

Our school stopped all work dead in its tracks on the 20th March. To the extent of cancelling all work which had been proposed for the 23rd and 24th. This should have the effect of avoiding any doubt on the part of the exam board about what work has and hasn't been used to form a judgment about grades. Keeps it clean.

I’m bothered about dd2s French, 2 person class. Both predicted A. Pretty equal in terms of work, one better at speaking, one better at writing etc. But have to be ranked 1/2??

It doesn't matter if they're both solidly in the same band - why would it?

Dds school stopped all work too.. but their tracking and reporting was very good and the classes are very small ...they did have lessons in the last week prior to break up but no submitted work.

Perhaps they would rank =1st @thedrsdocmartens.

I think they have said absolutely no equal rankings allowed. Which is harsh .

That's right, no tied rankings.

That's difficult especially when there are only two equally rated DC but hopefully both would get the same grade like @goodbyestranger stated.

Oneteen we weren't talking about submitted work to raise a school's grades overall (which won't be possible as no work or evidence is being submitted to the exam boards) but submitted work that could change an individuals ranking within a cohort.

DS school is being clear that the work being done after Easter and proposed assessments are much more about providing structure and keeping the students ticking over for longer, reducing the gap between end of school and start of Uni and I think we are fortunate to have them. The assessments will be stretching and different to a normal A level. They may be useful to further evidence or justify a ranking already decided but they will not disadvantage anyone who can't do them or has been less able to study. Thankfully in a small cohort they know the pupil's individual situations well.

French (any language really) is awkward too as results always depend on how many native speakers. This year would be interesting as there is often have native speakers sitting ALevels (any language) who haven’t done the course in school.

@Oratory1 sorry who is "we"?. @MillicentMartha mentioned that she hoped that submitted work would not effect ranking and I responded.

Dds school is fully open for online work for both yr11 and yr13 next term which I have stated several times .. But not yr13 work...but work that will provide structure and will be in the form of mini EPQs on their chosen degree or other work that will aid them in career choice.

Oneteen I thought you were saying someone had suggested submitted work might advantage a whole school. Sorry if I misread it! Didn’t mean to offend.

Yes I saw what your school is doing last week and it’s a good approach

@Oratory1.. No worries

no work or evidence is being submitted to the exam boards

But of course it's entirely open to moderators to request evidence so all work, and its date, is in theory susceptible to scrutiny. If any work submitted after the 20th is used in any way (other than long term NEAs), the moderators might justifiably raise an eyebrow. No work after the 20th should feature at all, if a school doesn't want to look dodgy.

Some schools are doing online assessments in the next few week weeks.. I have a DD in an independent that is in the top 5 nationally (although she’s not doing A-levels this year), but the Year 13s have been revising like crazy over Easter. Even if these exams can’t be used to officially rank girls, of course teachers can perhaps glance at these results in very close cases, whether they admit to doing so if not. It’s a way of getting the objective evidence they otherwise lack. This is a school where the cohort is very narrow, ability-wise, in the sense that they will nearly all be in course for A* or A, so ranking girls will be like splitting hairs in many cases. Another consideration is that very few are from deprived backgrounds, so it’s more a level playing field - is the school gives them all iPads etc throughout. If anyone has been affected by the virus, then she can just tell the school and they will factor this in according to the individual circumstances, but otherwise, they will still implement the assessments. Also, if the girls are thinking about deferring or doing the exams in October, these exam results can be used to guide these decisions because exam performance is often a very different thing to coursework. They can also use the grades to justify decisions to patents and teachers I guess, if need be. They are charging full fees for next term and offering a full programme online including uni bridging / extension programmes once the exams are finished.

Sorry for typos - on my phone and cant see properly!

@catsandcoffees, if my DD was at a top 5 ranked indie I’d be asking why exactly they might be lacking objective evidence at this stage in my DD’s career.

I agree with hobbema. I work in a state grammar and they have records of each and every topic test, homework and mock exam taken and already know the ranking of the year group. There are 60 taking physics, 140 taking maths and 100 taking chemistry in Y13. We had finished the course and were on to revision.