School unable to rank/grade Alevel students.

[Upsetmom]

Hi, my daughter received the email below today? Does anyone know if other schools are doing this? Is it just the way her school have interpreted the guidelines? Have one super distraught young adult! Looks like she will miss out on her uni place for an ultra competitive subject.

At the announcement of cancellation of the summer examinations 2020, xxxxxx our examinations officer, contacted you in preparation for alternative arrangements that the exam boards were putting in place. In anticipation of a range of possible measures, you were asked to collect examples of assessed work that could be provided as evidence.

Following the guidance that has been released by Ofqual on the assessment arrangements for providing grades and rank within the centre, we advise that it will not be possible for the school to provide you with an assessed grade. To be confident, we would need to ensure that there has been a continuous relationship with the school in which work has been submitted and assessed during this academic year, which would allow us to not only provide an assessed grade but also a ranked position alongside all candidates entered at the centre.

In such circumstances that the following options are available to you:

If you have been studying through another centre, you may be able to transfer your entry to that centre to provide the relevant assessment data.

Maintain your entry for the examinations, for which we would indicate that we are unable to confidently provide an assessed grade. This would mean that the exam boards may not award a grade and you would be able to sit the examination at the next available opportunity (which we understand to be the Autumn with no fixed date being yet published).
Withdraw completely and receive a refund. If you chose this option, you may re-enter at a later date but may be subject to increased fees.

We would recommend the second option, in which you are still able to retake your examination that you have prepared for, albeit at a postponed date. If you have a conditional university offer, you may wish to contact the relevant admissions tutor to provide clarification and seek advice. Should you wish to withdraw your entry completely, we have a deadline of Friday 15 May to withdraw candidates so that they may receive a full refund without incurring any cost.

If you have any queries, please contact [redacted], examinations officer, and we will inform you of any updates in relation to the autumn sitting of the exams.

I don’t know what to suggest. I understand how upset she must be.

My dd has self studied an A Level this year but she has been having weekly tutorial sessions with the teacher who taught her that subject fir GCSE. She also sat a mock and submitted several practice essays so they are confident to predict a Grade for her. They can’t rank her as no one else is taking this subject.

Has your dd had no communication/input with school prior to lockdown?

Did your daughter have any luck today with contacting the Uni?

It's really rough of them to send it today and expect an answer tomorrow. Might be worth seeing if there is any leeway on extending that while she looks for answers to help her decide!

Comefromaway - That does mean she will be ranked number 1!

Update. I tweeted some journalists and one from C4 made contact with us. I have spoken to the head who has apologised about the letter and is now trying to do something to help the pupils. I have contacted both the exam board and Ofqual. The exam board are happy for the school to use data from year 13. Looking at Ofqual's twitter feed there are lots of others in a similar situation. All those in my daughters school in her situation have medic/dental/vet offers and as this is their second time of applying many of them won't have the chance again due to regulations. Hoping C4 will interview some of those affected and put out a piece on Monday.
She has emailed the uni but not had a reply.

Has she followed the correct procedures for contacting the university? Where I work, we have a specific form they have to fill in on the prospective students page with their UCAS number, etc and an explanation of their situation. Someone will then phone them.

Her year 13 data will suggest you gets the grade she got last year though? Or it won’t be good data if it’s demonstrably wrong.

Presumably she has improved since last year ? But that improvement can’t be quantified by staff who haven’t seen her. The only thing the head could feasibly do would be to run socially distanced exams for her after June 1st.

Everyone’s data will be based on the fact that they were expected to improve between then/whenever mocks were and now.

My dd got a B in her AS level last year. Her teacher has said for ages that she’d expect that to improve to an A by this year for example.

That is very unfair on her. I self studied for an extra GCSE in the sixth form (music) and I was allowed to sit it at school (and got the top grade) so it was similar - school had no idea of what I was like at music officially (and we didn't even have a choir or take GCSE music at that school)

It is one reason despite covid 19 I would NOT have cancelled the public exams (nor closed the schools)

It is unfortunate Xenia, but AppleKatie is right - if the school judge on the data they have from her Yr13 work, then they already know her grade - as that is what she has already got.
If they haven't seen any work / practice papers / mocks etc since she sat her A-levels last Summer, how can you expect them to be able to judge it ?
They can't.
Of course it is a shame, but it isn't the school's fault.
As so many others have said, she needs to talk to the admissions departments at the Universities she wants to go to and see if there is some way they will either accept what she has, or be prepared to offer some kind of assessment to see if they thing she has improved sufficiently to get the extra grade.

However it is possible that her year 13 data supports the higher grade anyway and that she just had a bad day on the exam. So with an extra year's study and obvious commitment (as in she is bothering to rwit and not give up) it is possible that her school could assess her as likely to achieve that higher grade.

They Will know her individual paper results too and it is possible just one paper dragged her result down.

It's also possible that there were extenuating circumstances which mean she did less well than expected last year. But the school would at least know where she stood in comparison with other candidates.