Another Path to Greatness - Part II

[BigWoollyJumpers]

Here we are.

@SATSmadness nope. As I said in the medicine form, if you are determined enough to be a doctor, and you have the ability, you will do it one way or another

Hang in there and will keep fingers crossed for you

There are 40 places at Birmingham, THB I'm not sure how many computer science places they have - 200?? That's a complete guess :) One of his old friends from primary school got through to the last stage so it will be nice if he gets it.
We really could have done with the financial incentive though. I've upped my hours to 48 a week to try and save enough to help him out. If he starts to pay his student loan back he'll be earning more than his Dad and I each earn, so we will not be paying up front. :)

From what I hear from school, medicine offers are very slow to come out this year.

@SATSmadness so sorry to hear about the loss of your pet. It can have such a big impact I know, they are part of the family. Could well be a proxy for just the weight of worry on your DD as well though particularly as her friend has offers. It does seem inordinately tough for medicine this year in an already tough subject. I know people say look on it as a two year application process but I really hope your DD gets an offer this year.

Also sympathy for the lack of parental support. They just don't seem to know the right thing to say (or, more importantly, what not to say) do they?! Wondering if we will be like that one day - I do sincerely hope not!

(Yes, on law some sponsored students do an LPC with LLM (or just an LPC course - either the year's course or an accelerated 7 month one). The new system (SQE1, II etc) will start for some in a year though but I think it will end up being pretty similar for those going to big firms and the timetables will be likely to stay the same. So if you can get unpaid informal law experience of some kind in year 1 of university that is helpful. Then Autumn term of year 2 or non law graduates apply for vacation schemes and year 3 under graduates (non law) in summer before starting year 3 in the Autumn term of year 3 apply for what are currently called training contracts to start after your GDL and LPC years. So the firms recruit very far ahead as they did in my day in the 1980s too.)

@SATSmadness apologies about failing to give my condolences on the loss of your pet

Obviously it's not the same as losing a parent or a pet as I know some posters had such losses; DS rejection from Cambridge brought out all the frustrations of Covid and lockdown ........ I properly threw my toys out of the pram last week and was picked up virtually by two dear friends. Today is the first day in a long time I have felt truly positive

@chopc
For non law grads, they should try and get an internship if they can from second year at university. They apply for training positions from early in Y3 or y4. This, for a non law grad, will require the conversion course after leaving university. The law firms know this. So they will pay for it if a training contract has been secured. Plus a sum for living expenses. Then the trainee joins the firm and does the new SQE. This might be very intense and will be with the provider the law firm have a contract with. So not doing a law degree puts you 1 year behind LLB grads due to having to convert but the application process is at the same stage of their time at university.

DC will find fellow students talk about this - a sort of lemming approach! The main thing is not to miss deadlines. Also whether it’s barrister or solicitor route DC want.

Glad you are feeling more positive.

@chopc I have to confess I wasn't particularly bothered by DD's rejection from Cambridge, other than feeling that if she'd been a 2020 applicant the odds would have been more in her favour. Hope your toys have been picked up and and gently put back in the cot now.

It's the whole UCAS experience not turning out to be the way school had talked about it at the "early entry group" online meetings that is the point of sorrow for me (on DD's behalf).
It seems that despite DD's school having a much larger Y14 group than ever before (and all but 1 of them being early entry candidates) the UCAS advisers hadn't factored the effect of this multiplied up across the country into advice to the Y13s, ignoring the potential implications and talking/advising as if it was just any other year.

DD is currently of the belief that she seems to be "on hold" at her current favourite choice as they have sent out some offers but are apparently still interviewing which to her mind indicates that they'll only be making her an offer if the remaining interview candidates are weaker at interview than she was. I'm still hoping that she gets an offer from there regardless, even if it would represent a somewhat luke-warm "invitation" by comparison.

(Yes, and "PP" described that law process much better than I did. The law firms' websites set out the timetables and deadline dates).

Please bear in mind that not all training contracts come with sponsorship for GDL/LPC or new equivalent but obviously if applying for City firms or top regionals they do, which is what makes them even more sought after.

Great - so massive stress out from DS this morning. So much for teacher assessment! He feels they have been lied to. The school have just announced three sets of “tests” between now and May. The first ones start in two weeks and are at 8am in the morning before school starts. Then, as if they haven’t been stuck at home long enough, the two weeks directly after the Easter break are a “designated study leave” and they only go in when they have exams. So three times! This will take them to about May 5th, something like that. Then, as if this isn’t enough, they have another week of tests at the end of May.

90% of their grades will be based in these tests apparently. Only 10% of TA based on performance over the two years.

In other words - exams under a different name, but exams nonetheless.

Yet unis have (and still are) making offers on the assumption that there will be no exams and it will be TAGs!

I’m literally at the end of my tether now. The kids are drained. I have another one facing GCSE and it’s testing gone mad there too.

This whole year is a shambles. They are waiting and waiting and waiting for months in end to hear from unis and what is happening regarding assessment - and now this.

Yet other schools will probably “opt out” of the optional exams and just award whatever grade comes to mind.

DS looks ill. Still nothing from LSE, but has friends being rejected daily, so that feels like a dagger about to drop any minute too.

Sorry to come raging on here, but I’ve had enough.

Oh Quest1on, so very sorry to hear this. DS was in quite a state when he got to March and was still waiting on Warwick, LSE and UCL, and that was without a pandemic. His confidence took a huge beating, especially when he then got a no from Warwick.

I hope he hears soon. DS cheered up almost immediately he got his offer, and could start making plans for his future. And indeed has probably never looked back. All we could do was to keep close as a family, and reassure him that we valued him, whatever was going on elsewhere. (And monitor TSR and Twitter - DH discovered an LSE twitter thread, so we knew what was going on, but without talking about it to him.)

@quest1on

It sure must be tough to be an A level subject teacher this year too. Pressure to come up with a workable grade producing strategy in house, the knowledge that grades could be challenged and the worry that whatever your school does might produce results out of kilter with others due to there being no single method applied across the country. You might short change your students (although based on last year this seems unlikely) or alternatively you could look like the fairy godmother of A Level grades, magically creating A's out of previously predicted B's.

The thing is, in his school last year, grades were slightly inflated, but not massively so like in other schools. The percentage of A*-A was up by maybe 5%. It’s a selective school so overall grade statistics are fairly similar year on year.

I just feel as if GW has copped out and left it totally up to individual schools discretion as to how they will award grades. Inconsistency is inevitable. After all the talk and blah, blah, blah, he’s now got two weeks to revise for an exam that could largely determine his future. Doesn’t matter that he’s worked flat out to get A* all the way through. None of that now counts to TAGs apparently.

I'm genuinely not trying to aggravate anyone , and I agree that Gavin Williamson is incompetent, but when I hear people complaining (on MN and elsewhere) about the TAGs they never seem to have a different solution? What would parents on this thread like the Govt to have done instead given the vastly differing amounts of content that schools have completed for each course?

Ds school are saying that they will submit at least 3 pieces of evidence for each subject, including timed essays, mini exams and other relevant work. They may use the government provided test papers, if they're 'suitable'. The evidence will presumably be used to contest any appeals?

I thought that TAGs were supposed to all be about “teachers know their students best” etc. Yes I think k they expected some tests which could be used as extra evidence, particularly in the case if appeals. The difference here, is that the tests will not be “additional evidence” - it seems their grades will be determined by these exams (just like normal A-levels).

Happy to be corrected but my understanding from info released by the 2 schools my A'level and GCSE children are at is that all schools are being asked to follow the same guidelines. The way I am understanding it is that their final assessed grade will be arrived at in the following manner. Firstly all pupils need to take a series (maybe 2 or 3) sets of internal assessments between now and the end of May. These will predominantly be used to guide the teacher on their final grade. The assessments can be internally set or the external exam board ones can be used for one of them. The assessments will only cover the extent of the curriculum covered to date. Secondly, they will look at earlier assessments, block tests and grades work from across the 2 year course. This section will make up a much smaller section of their grade as the government believes their final grade should be predominantly based on their knowledge/skill set by the end of the course. The exact % based on earlier work is still being worked out and I'm not sure if this is set internally or externally. Also if NEA is part of the course then this will be included in the final assessed grade as usual (ie to the normal %).
I don't think any schools are allowed to solely base the TAG on work so far. The assessments coming up (timings at discretion of school) must be used and will form a much bigger part (possibly huge although 90% seems like a lot). It does sort of feel like exams by the back door. Potentially less stressful and with a lot of school input. But exams nevertheless.

I also think there has been a lot of misleading media reportage on how our kids will be assessed which is adding to frustrations.

This from Vicky Ford just now on another thread -

We’re absolutely clear there will be no ‘mini exams’ this year. The assessment materials students will look and feel very different to exams, and will be just one way for students to show what they know and can do. Exam boards are going to publish detailed guidance for schools before the end of the spring term.

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/education/4181807-Q-A-with-Vicky-Ford-MP-Childrens-Minister-about-return-to-school-for-all-children

So, it does sound like schools can determine if/how they set tests/exams, and one would have to assume, how much these might contribute to CAGs?

It's beginning to sound a little more uniform/rigorous based on info provided in the most recent posts on this thread.

It does however sound inconsistent with the way grades were awarded in 2020 when Y13s had experienced normality right up to the 3rd week in March of their second year of A Levels. I can't say that it will in any way reduce stress levels of this subsequent cohort who have already endured nationally inconsistent distance learning, bubbles/bubbles bursting/back to distance learning for some but not others, exams initially advised as being pushed back to later in Y13, now potentially brought forward as mini exams so potentially not covering all of the syllabus, some kids getting lucky as it covers bits they favour and others possibly conversely unlucky.
Obviously we'll have to see what our DC's schools are going to do although the bottom line is that we presumably just want them to get fair grades that reflect their ability and enable them to access any Uni places based on achieving target grades.

I am so confused...... so DD is having mocks after Easter, which I assume will be flexible and as near to an exam as normal mocks are.

However, I was also assuming that all the 30 and 20 marker essays that DD has been doing this term would form a substantial amount of the grade, that's what she assumes anyway. The constant stress she has been under to perform at top level for these essays has completely drained her. I hope it will not all be for nought. And then there have been the weeks and weeks on NEA's.... she still hasn't submitted her History. And so it goes on and on and on.

Yes BWJ. DD's subject teachers have been communicating that they should "treat each piece of work submitted as if it's the one on which a grade will be based" for so long now that some DC are flagging badly with the tension/stress of waiting to hear back as to the mark/grade awarded and then stressing as to the effect on their overall average performance.

She's on call right now with a friend who wants her to go through a piece of work before it's submitted as the friend isn't sure about a concept and believes she can't risk getting the kind of mark which denotes "you need to re-visit your notes on this as it's not quite right".
What a bloody awful year for these Y13s ! And their reward ? Fiercer competition for places on already routinely oversubscribed courses.

I actually witnessed a teacher on a Zoom with DS today. A girl asked, “If we mess up these exams, will you still be able to draw on evidence of our recent work, or work over the course, to award our predicted grades?” There was a long pause. The teacher said that last year, 90% of the grades finally awarded were based on the mock exam results (!) and it will be the same this year, using these exams (although some subjects have NEAs to be taken into account as well). This is what he said to the class today. I’m very confused as I too, didn’t think the exams would be the end all and be all, just part of the wider picture of evidence.

@quest1on

Is the teacher saying that kids generally do better in mocks than in the real thing, given the grade inflation last year ?

I really hope we get some more clarity. DS' school keep banging on about how they don't need to perform at the highest level for every piece of work, and yet there are some dcs on this thread that are hearing the complete opposite. This is what the government need to clarify. 'Just do your best work' is not always sustainable if you are a perfectionist and you apply it to every single thing you do!

quest1on - ds' school confirmed that the marks will be heavily weighted to the end of the school year, and we have been told they will have 2 weeks study leave with 2 'assessments' for each subject in May. Sounds like this will count a lot towards the TAG for ds.