GCSEs Summer 2020 (thread 4) -the final countdown

[PostNotInHaste]

Thread 3
Thread 2
Thread 1(year 10)

Hope OrangeCinnamon doesn’t mind me starting another in her absence , feel twitchy without ! Apologies in advance if I have messed the links up.

The last thread ended with discussion of possible school closures, not really what we want to hear at this point - let’s hope things sound more positive as thread progresses.

Shimy, that sounds ridiculous. Are they all to be done immediately, or do you think his teachers have shoved a tonne of stuff on all in one go?
I'd tell him to run a normal school day, if possible, and anything not done by 4pm will have to wait.

In contrast, DD was given one piece of Latin to do today, due in on Thursday.

DS has done about an hour of set work today & has been set some past papers. School plans some online classes for the next two weeks. After Easter are going to do some pre-A level prep sessions online.

They all have deadlines of within a day or two of each other. They have online lessons to which I was quite pleased with to begin with after all, term was meant to end this Friday, But from the correspondence, it seems they intend to keep this up throughout Easter and beyond. Just couldn’t bear to see DS frustrated face, he had really struggled with the Chemistry which he said was unusually hard and scored only 61%, then History sent about 4 different essays and it wasn’t clear what he was meant to do. DS tried contacting his teachers via email but we then got a message from HOY not to contact individual teachers for anything. He’s now gone from looking forward to 8s and 9s in his exams to he’s going to fail everything because of all the new work sent out and is now sinking into depression.

DD's school sent out that they would continue to be given English and Maths (sensible since these will be the most likely resits) and work in preparation for their A-Level studies. She did say she found it very hard to focus today which I've let go given the stress they've been under.

Also a letter from the sixth form about being very understanding with the entrance requirements. We think (fingers crossed) that the only potential problem was a 5 instead of a 6 in English Language so it doesn't sound like too much of an issue especially as she's not actually doing English!

Oh I assumed you must be a teacher TeenPlusTwenties and felt quite reassured as it seemed fair!

My son has been set no extra work just needs to finish his art and some assignments for the btec he was taking.

Have heard nothing from the 6th form college so no idea what their plans are in regards to awarding places.
DS was meant to be going to a maths event there tomorrow which they haven’t even emailed to cancel!
He’s not going obviously

I have to say that as a governor at DD’s school I know they obsessively data collect about their pre GCSE students. I have absolute faith that they will come up with a fair grade that DD deserves. I have sat through more presentations on progress 8 and attainment 8 than you can shake a stick at.

We are purely doing sixth form transition work. School have said for years 11 and 13 that they are done but to keep year 11 revision resources in case they want to resit. Have put year 11 stuff away until July results. DS doing 3 hours a day weekdays only and we are just keeping everything in a file for September (everything crossed!). He’s taking Eng Lit, so reading a lot before he starts set summer text - Catcher in the Rye at the moment but set text is Great Gatsby), history and French. He was doing core maths as his 4th as didn’t want to do EPQ as his other subjects are essay heavy but after 45 minutes of core maths yesterday thinks he will change to AS maths.

He is much happier than last week but really struggling due to lack of exercise - he’s a swimmer so used to v early starts and lots of mileage in the pool.

DD is doing 5 X 1 hour lessons a day in line with her usual timetable. Some video, some just tasks set. She is still getting homework too, including whole maths papers and topic based past questions for other subjects. I agree she seems to be getting more ATM than she was before. No chance of revision, which is frustrating as many of the teachers are requiring tasks to be undertaken under exam conditions. Her revision was to start in earnest over the Easter holidays.

www.gov.uk/government/news/further-details-on-exams-and-grades-announced

To produce this, teachers will take into account a range of evidence and data including performance on mock exams and non-exam assessment – clear guidance on how to do this fairly and robustly will be provided to schools and colleges. The exam boards will then combine this information with other relevant data, including prior attainment, and use this information to produce a calculated grade for each student, which will be a best assessment of the work they have put in.

Until its known when evidence gathering stops then I dont see how years 11 and 13 can be seen as "done" I have boys in both years and they are being kept very busy by the school.

I'm amazed at home-based work much other schools are giving: ds has literally nothing set on schoology - dd who is in a lower year on the other hand has a reasonable amount. DS is (relatively...!) self motivated, but is basically doing a couple of hours a day on revision work he already had (only in place for a few subjects, luckily mostly ones he is planning on doing) and upskilling in his beloved comp sci (teaching himself a new programming language). Are those who are being set lots of work at private schools may I ask?

Evidence gathering has stopped. The exam boards have said 'work already done' as has DfE.

Can you put up a link ?

Piggy Is this new info released today or an improved interpretation of what’s already been said?

DD’s mocks came through today. Absolutely flunked. Only got 4 or above in 2 subjects - and one of those is PE and use to neither man nor beast. She’s devastated, I am swinging between gutted for her and furious that she didn’t do better and then back to gutted as this should have been a wake up call and encouraged her to knuckle down and now it’s all in the hands of someone else. And then back to pissed off with her for not taking this seriously. She certainly made a show of revising though so I don’t understand what has gone wrong, some exams she felt she did well in she has barely scraped a few marks in. And of course there is no one to talk to about it now. I was one of the parents who was looking forward to seeing what they were but they’ve just created more answers than questions.

Her predicted grades for all subjects have been all 4’s/5’s/6’s so this is clearly not what she is capable of but I just can’t get my head round it.

I have one in each exam year and they are both being set work for every lesson and extra for free periods.

shimy et al. It is what has always been said.

I may try and find the doc and copy and paste if I get a sec.

That’s what I thought at first. That it was meant to be work already done I.e BEFORE the announcement but I can see why schools have interpreted it differently because it can be argued that it means work gathered up until end of term or during the course of the academic year. It has not been explicit when the cut off date is.

@Piggywaspushed our school emailed yesterday and expect the children to be working through to June and will be continuing to assess them. So many different messages being given out by all the schools, it's very frustrating.

damnit; can't find it now. It is buried in a pdf. But , clearly , to ask students to complete more work form home (as schools have now frimly been told they cannot get students in to do work) contravenes some NEA regs, and also advantages students who have supportive home lives, excellent IT , families and schools with good channels of communication and that will simply not be countenances.

Judgements will be made on work 'completed'. This is not to say teachers might not be asked to mark any already submitted NEAs for evidence.

Union guidance are telling us not to mark student work , so they must have done this anticipating teachers suddenly being required to mark a flurry of extra stuff.

I'd give it a few more weeks til we know to be honest at school end.

I d suspect any schools asking for work are jittery because of lack of documented evidence and progress tracking.

Well,, that school hasn't read the union guidelines! Why don't they just wait, these schools? It's chaotic!

I suspect the cut off date will be from the day the schools closed, perhaps.

It must be mayhem in all these government departments right now.

Thanks for that update Piggy, it was worded very carefully so not out and out saying they would have further assessments but the suggestion was strong. To be honest it set me off worrying again when I had calmed down from the previous messages! Schools all making the children do different things is mad.

I wonder if it's to do with our school only sitting one set of mocks at the beginning of January whereas many schools around here sat them in November and January and some had started more in March?

Yeah Piggy ,Eton are" jittery because of lack of documented evidence and progress tracking".lol

Youve now changed from telling us evidence gathering has stopped and "the exam boards have said" and "its what always been said" to" you suspect" and" perhaps"