University 2020 :5: Results day approaching and beyond

[MillicentMartha]

Old thread
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/higher_education/3855474-University-2020-4-The-wait-for-grades-and-better-days-ahead?pg=40

Less than 3 months to go until we have a better idea what the future has in store for our DC. Let’s hope that even if most lectures are online that accommodation is open and they can move up, across or down to their university towns and start their student life.

We should have been in the middle of exams, instead we have this strange limbo of lockdown. It could have been worse, though.

It won't be 100%, but if there are 8 people who are in shared spaces with you half the time it will be helpful not to have to distance from them. DS doing medicine and they don't have options. He said it would be great if his dissection/tutorial group were his bubble. At least they could have meals together (if they are catered) and study together. Will work better for some subjects than others.

If you think of the bubble as preventing your DC from having to distance from everybody they meet it may seem more of a positive thing at a difficult time. Some will meet their best friends in their bubbles - my first year room mate became my best friend although we had little in common, several friends' DCs have ended up living with their first year university allocated flatmates for their whole time at university.

Divoc2020.: My view is that as the subjects that are predominantly coursework such as Art, Music, DT etc are having their grades centre assessed at the moment there are less likely to be shocks for those subjects because the teachers know them and the quality of their work so well.

If someone does want to improve their grade then they will be taking a year out anyway so whether they take in October (A Level) or November (gcse) or the following summer wont make too much difference as the summer sitting will be using NEAs. They have nothing to lose by taking the theory paper in Autumn as the better of the two grades ie. the centre assessed grade or the Autumn mark can be used.

The boards are apparently only withdrawing the exams if no-one wishes to take the subject.

The consultation ending on 8 June is not a shock. It has been out a fair while already and previously discussed on these boards.

As regards Warwick and accommodation; a large number of unis take the applications but do not allocate accommodation until results day. I very much suspect rather than the random selection to ensure a mix like they normally do they may very well see whether they are able to house as many as possible with same subjects in the different halls or at least the different flats within the halls to aid social distancing.

@SeasonFinale I think one of the problems with coursework subject grades is that the Boards will be using statistical analysis to give grades to schools and they are often small groups of students. If there were 5 students last year and they got ABBCD, it appears that schools will be expected to give similar grades for current students so teachers are very much constrained.

I'm getting very impatient with WarwickI bet thatiswhat they're doing. It does make sense to keep them together but it's very limiting socially.

Not to mention the potential issue of finding that your 'bubble' is to be located in, say, Bluebell, when all you can afford is Whitefields?

Will there be set times for each group to visit the on site shops, with teaching staff corralled on site away from their families, so as not to 'prick' the bubbles by introducing contact with outsiders in the same way as would be the case were one of their Politics seminar members to share a kitchen with a Maths student?

Monkey2001 - the guidance for centre assessment clearly allows for differences for small cohort subjects so there is no requirement for exact matches to the prior 3 year average. Teachers should have been briefed properly by their HODs on.the guidance and it's nuances.

Agree with @SeasonFinale.. I think Warwick are probably developing an accommodation system which will put students into bubbles based on course on submission of accommodation selections.. Every student can choose 6 preferences so it probably means tinkering with their system so they can sort each accommodation selection by course... Eg everyone who has selected Bluebell accommodation who are on the same Economics course would be put in a bubble.. If any left overs they would look at the students options 2-6 and then allocate bubbles etc... Not easy given that there are multiple accommodation options and courses that interlink... Dds course is held at the life science part of the campus which is distanced from the main campus but the life science campus offers graduate medicine courses where I assume the students would be off campus... All using the same labs and computer suites...

Impossible to keep everyone safe but at least they can try and mitigate risk

Warwick is DS's insurance choice. He is hoping to be in quieter accommodation (has medical evidence for this). When he emailed Warwick disability support, they suggested Lakeside or Heronsbank. I'm not sure he will be able to find six choices that meet the criteria for his needs.

When we visited, he liked both Lakeside and Heronsbank, but obviously you don't necessarily get your first preference even in normal times.

Ironoaks, I hope he can get the accommodation he needs and deserves.
Has he been in touch with student disability support at the uni?
I ask, as dc emailed hers at the start of the week and a lovely chap rang her yesterday and they discussed so much about support, accommodation etc. Or is that who you meant?
I was really impressed that the mental health chap she spoke to clearly supported her accommodation choice.
It won't be allocated till results, but I feel she has found someone who will give her a voice.

@SeasonFinale goodness knows how that will work then. Surely all schools will try to get the best grades for their school that they can, so if somebody is a borderline A/B they will try to get them an A. If you have limited statistical background the boards will not be able to moderate with any confidence so presumably the grades for those subjects will just end up higher than usual.

GCSE grades of cohort play a large role in setting expected results. As do several years prior attainment by school. And it all has to be backed up by rigorous data. Small cohorts are specifically mentioned in the guidance. So results may be different from previous years if cohort has higher previous attainment. Hope that helps. It was a difficult but incredibly rigorous process for us.

Yes prior cohort attainment across the board will be taken into account so if a high performing group as a whole then higher may be expected in some subjects, they will even out over all the subjects but be in line with standard results for school ADJUSTED for prior cohort attainment. I seriously think people overthink this and there will be fewer surprises than actual exams.

Thank you @thesunwillout
I'm glad your DD has been able to find someone who is listening to what she needs.

DS has contacted the disability support team at his firm choice and they've exchanged a couple of emails.

With his insurance choice, his plan was to wait for the accommodation application process to open (usually May) and then email them about that as an opener.

Can I join you? DS is on a gap year and has a place at Newcastle for Sept. He’s being pretty laid back about the proposed changes and is very keen to go. Newcastle have been good at communicating - at the moment their start date ( end of Sept) is the same and they are apparently building temporary accommodation so that all the halls can follow distancing rules. Accommodation applications aren’t open yet, probably because of this.
Anyone else’s DC going to Newcastle?

@mumsneedwine (and any other teachers who want to answer) do you feel that the process has resulted in the right grades for your students (assuming no moderation). Do you think this year's results will be a better reflection on your students abilities than normal? Would be interested to know.

@Monkey2001 I actually do think we have put forward grades that are a fair reflection of what the students would have achieved. So as long as exam boards leave them alone we will be happy.
And it may be fairer as it means those students who have worked hard will get what they deserve. The ones that will miss out will be the last minute.com ones who always pull it out of the bag at the last minute. For them I feel sad.
It has been a long and stressful process, especially the ranking, but we have done our best.

On the prior years attainment and the cohorts GCSE grades - Is this based on performance in actual subjects or just across the whole cohorts overall GCSE results? Eg if this year's cohort all achieved A*/8 & 9's in Physics but students in prior years only mainly achieved A/7s for Physics its highly likely that this year's students would perform better than previous years.. Whereas it maybe that the overall GCSEs across all subjects is the same year on year...because of weaker results in other subjects...so they would award the same level as prior years in Physics but its actually a stronger cohort in this subject this year.

My DDs firm is Newcastle, MyBelleSauvage. I was wondering why they were opening their accommodation application process so late!

mumsneedwine, how has the process worked for your SEND students? My DD was granted 50% extra time 2 weeks before lockdown, so wasn't assessed with this in place for most of year 12 and 13, so always ran out of time due to very poor working memory/processing, so I'm wondering how she will get a fair grade assessment.

mushroom3, for her to have been awarded 50% extra time, the school would have had to show evidence that this was necessary. She would have had to have been given extra time in at least some assessments, perhaps changing colour of her pen at the end of normal time. The school was supposed to rank her as if she had used the special provision. For her to have been deemed eligible, she would have had to show significant improvement with the extra time in practice, which her teachers would be aware of.

I can imagine it’s a massive added stress, though, but hopefully her teachers will be best placed to rank her appropriately.

@mushroom3 I'm not allowed to go into specifics and every school will have done things differently. But we have used our SEND data to fix our grades and use information as back up for this. And it has been used to inform ranking too.
The cohort is taken as a whole against the natural average so can affect grades up or down. But. Most teachers will have given grades honestly and with integrity. In my head was always me in front of an OFQUAl person justifying what I had done and why.

I think I have answered my own question and it looks like prior cohort GCSE attainment will be at subject level which must be fairer...

The ones that will miss out will be the last minute.com ones who always pull it out of the bag at the last minute. For them I feel sad.

That's my Dd. Hopefully she has done enough to get her grades and her teachers saw her potential but her mocks were pretty bad as she did sod all not much work. She was originally predicted A*AA and needs AAB so fingers crossed.

they are apparently building temporary accommodation so that all the halls can follow distancing rules.

Interesting LaBelle, I wonder if any others are doing this?

She was originally predicted AAA and needs AAB so fingers crossed.

Arghh bloody star button. That should read AstarAA.