Exam diet 2021.

[wingingitwithgin]

So we were told no National 5s or Highers last term.
My child has been continually assessed and tested week after week. Prelims in school before Christmas and online after Christmas.

Online learning better than 2020 but not great. No live lessons. Lots and lots of new material given but not taught.
Today announced exams to go ahead start of May as planned. Prelims disregarded as some done online so all prelims even school sat ones won't count.
Exam in May will determine grade. If pupil is self isolating /COVID they will use other evidence.

My child is burnt out by the switching of goalposts. Another month doing new material, no study leave then exams like normal (only the poor teachers marking them)

Ok this would seem fair if all schools doing this but their friends at 2 different high schools say they are just continuing with mini class tests like autumn term. Madness the difference in approach.

What are your schools doing?

Your poor DS having to do Physics twice.

4 times now! since he got back after easter, interim assessment, main assessment (where there has been cheating), unannounced resit which was the 2018 paper, then resit again as to be valid evidence the resit had to be unpublished questions so last one didn't count. Thankfully it was only physics where there appears to be anomalies.

All good practice for Advanced Higher Physics 🤦🏻‍♀️

Hope it hasn't put him off!

Have any of your kids been given their results yet?
My child is back at school (doing no new work ) and told exam/assessment results won't be discussed.
They will receive them in an envelope with their report next Friday in their form class registration. I thought would be posted. My child is stressed will be under pressure to open in front of everyone.

Ds3 is being told them, including a controversial biology result, the exam was a stinker and almost everyone got lower marks than the preliminary and working grades they had but the head of dept is insisting on basing their grades only on this last exam "to avoid any more discussions", to get it over with basically. The other teachers are upset on behalf of the students. All along we've been told a range of evidence would be used but it seems not. DS needed 2As and 2Bs and now has 3As and a C, not sure how that will affect things but there's not much point worrying about it.

@nomorelockdowns

Have any of your kids been given their results yet? My child is back at school (doing no new work ) and told exam/assessment results won't be discussed. They will receive them in an envelope with their report next Friday in their form class registration. I thought would be posted. My child is stressed will be under pressure to open in front of everyone.

Ds's school has given them all out this week when they were ready by subject.

Each period the subject teacher called them up to the front of class one by one and showed them their grade and % scribbled on a bit of paper and handed it to them.

Ds says it was really strange and awkward, room just really quite and no one saying anything. Some obviously upset as hadn't done well, others did well but felt too awkward to say when friends were upset. Dreadful way to do it.

Quite = quiet

What would be a good way to do it? (Asking this as someone who will be doing it myself shortly!)

Personally (although probably too late), I would think letters to home address or text (if school system could handle it) after the have left for the day so if it is results they didn't expect they get the news in the privacy of their own home and initial reaction can be supported by parents and close friends.

This is just going by the reactions ds had seen from his classmates, they all just sat back down after getting their results, no one talking, with 20+ faces all watching them face to see if they were happy or not. Some had tears, the ones that were ok tried to hide it as friends were upset, he found it hard to watch.

Then they went to the next subject and went through it all again.

I dont envy you the task of handing them out either!

They are still young and even though a lot of them got their working grades from a few weeks back ds says for many of them their expectations in their minds were different and having to say to friends their subject by subject was also hard. Would have been better to get them all in one go.

Hope it goes OK, and you have a bottle in the fridge for later 🍷

Wings - Hoping your son received the grades he deserved. I know he was aiming high. 🤞

No news here and no idea of the manner in which grades will be shared. Our LEA has said grades will be issued BY 23 June.

We've been getting predicted grades or working grades throughout - think we've now had them twice. But when they send the working grades they're unclear about when they were assessed - so for example DD who is struggling in Biology was working on a 7 (for Nat 5) which is a D heading towards a C, but did better on a recent test and was hoping to push that up to a 6, which is a C. Report yesterday still shows 7 for biology.

They have promised that they will share final grades by 21st June, and say that they believe there is no reason that the grades they issue on that day will be changed by the SQA.

Next two weeks or so will be a total waste of time though, this week they are mopping up the remaining tests for people who were off, or self-isolating or whatever, but the rest of the class are sitting there doing nothing - DD was colouring in yesterday.

I agree Wings getting them all in one go and at home is much better at least they will have support I think getting the result in front of everyone in class is pretty awful if you have not done well I wouldn't have liked to have opened my results in class! Ours are due 22nd June.

I'm keeping DS3 off today, I'm going to get him to do some uni application research, I've just found out the course that he's set his heart on has a 6% acceptance rate, only 6 places a year for Scottish students, he's going to have to work extremely hard to be in with a shot and I'd rather he starts now than twiddling his thumbs in school.

@aurea

Wings - Hoping your son received the grades he deserved. I know he was aiming high. 🤞

No news here and no idea of the manner in which grades will be shared. Our LEA has said grades will be issued BY 23 June.

He did really well @aurea straight As, so pleased for him. As far as he is aware so far only 4 in S5 (200+ pupils, low performing school) have straight As which is similar to previous years at his school.

They gave them the bands A1, A2 etc and also the % in the assessment he got A1s for Maths and French. A2 for Physics, Chemistry and English.

He did really well with English with A2 and a whopping 83%. He only got such a high % because they took some of his higher marks from the first assessment. He would have still scrapped an A2, just not so high.

The rest were all marked from main assessments only for everyone, pleased with Chemistry A2 (78%) as he was targeted for a 3/B1 due to low in school unit tests grades in Oct/Nov after we all had a very tough month or so when we lost my mum to covid, he worked really hard to lift it back up over the Christmas holidays.

He was relieved to get home yesterday, as the mood in the school was so low and he was heart sorry for his friends going through it subject by subject results less than they needed. One lad, expected AAABB and got ABBBC, has had a dream to be an architect since he was young and was in pieces yesterday with support only from his friends between these silent/awkward classes and he walked out of school, he was better later in the evening after a pep talk from his parents about other routes into it.

Our school has set aside a day next week to deliver the results f2f with their pastoral care teacher. They’re getting a new timetable on Monday but there’s only 7/8 days of school left and some of that will be taken up by delivering results, ‘discussions’ about those results (inc. registering an appeal for some pupils) and working out whether the school will be able to teach certain subjects at AH over which there is a bit of a question mark. I’ll be chewing my fingernails the day they go in for Higher results!

Congrats WINGS: that's a great set of results for your son. You must be very relieved.

@Wbeezer I hope your child gets into their course! Still great results. Fingers crossed.
@WeAllHaveWings that's fabulous news about your son. It's great no nail biting till August.

@wbreezer how do you know how many places are available to Scottish students? I know you can find out offer stats for Edinburgh College of Art & Design. For GSA you can look on their graduate show case to see how many are graduating in each course and the numbers are tiny but I can’t see the split!

Just curious as we’ve been through the process this year and know how tough it is but I’m still interested in the numbers behind it all.

Edinburgh publish entry stats and I think you can get them for St Andrews maybe.

I'm depressed now after looking at the stats for Edinburgh. Fingers crossed DS does well.

@celtiethree i did so much googling about it I can't remember where i found that figure, i dont think it was on an officual website someone probably did a FOI request.
How did you get on with art school applications?

I'll be working on DS3 to consider alternative routes and courses but unfortunately he has two family members who went to ECA and two to GSA and he is a teenage snob about smaller less prestigeous places! Heriot Watt in Galashiels is not doing it for him!
The biology teachers are still arguing for a broader range of test scores to make up the mark rather than just the last assesment, well wait and see, it might not be enough to take him up to a B anyway.
On the bright side DS3 has gone from A, B, B, C, C in his Nat5s to A, A, A, C in his Highers which is quite impressive, the pared down curriculum and working at his own pace at home played to his strengths as did having nothing better to do! (going on meds for ADHD helped too).
I am so glad this is the last ever big exam year in our house.

Great set of As for your son Wbeezer apart from that biology result, hope as it is across the whole school they sort something out and he gets it up to a B. It is a shame biology has taken the shine off all those As.

I asked ds last night if they had similar problem with biology in his school but he doesn't know anyone who takes biology, but did say all sciences in his school were graded on the main exam results only. French gave them two shots at the talking part and took the highest mark, and English picked out the highest marks from the interim and main assessments for each piece of evidence.

Having nothing better to do during lockdown was a definite benefit for ds too! Pre lockdown he would have been wanting out every evening and weekend, going to his football teams home and away matches every weekend and knuckling down to studying would have been much harder and the outcome different.

@wbreezer actually did amazingly well on offers. Though decided not to apply straight from school. Which given what I’ve heard about art school provision over the last year was very fortuitous.

As a back up route suggest your DS looks at Glasgow Clyde - their HNC in Art and Design is a very successful route into art school.

I hear what you are saying re Galashiels 🤣 but it’s v popular for textiles!