What is known about this 'gaining evidence' for GCSEs and A level grades?

[Pebbles574]

Had a very vague letter from the school about how the Year 13s should keep making notes and doing past papers as this will be 'valuable evidence' to support their proposed grades from teachers.

I haven't been able to find answers to a number of specific questions about all of this:

• if a student has ACTUALLY completed coursework already (e.g. Design/ Drama etc) will this be externally marked and the mark used or will the teacher now just look at it/ assess it?
• Are schools meant to me keeping them doing revision-style activities all the way until when they were meant to go on study leave?
• what is the schools' cut-off point for these grade recommendations?

Any teachers with inside knowledge?

D1 had already finished her NEAs for History and English and they have been marked and moderated in school. I'm hoping that these will be taken into account by her teachers when they are working out her predicted grades as she got very good marks for them.

They definitely will be, but they will have to consider that it is only 30 % or so of the grade.

The advice to teachers (on the gov website so you can see it) specifically says that NEA work (regardless of it completed and marked or not) can be one of the things teachers consider but points out that it cannot be the sole thing and that performance on NEA is often higher than in examined modules due to the different nature of the assessment , so that should be borne in mind. A great NEA is only going to help, but the equivalent of an A on it won't mean a guaranteed A overall - the teachers will be considering what that,malus all the other evidence indicates was likely in the exam in the summer, had it been sat in May/June.

In reality, the more consistent excellent performance has been across all kinds of work then the more likely a really high grade is.

Personally I'd look at the numbers getting the different grades in each subject in the school over the last few years. That will give a decent indication of the school wide outcomes this year. Some students go to highly academic schools and know every year 80 get A-A at A Level. If they know they are in the top 5 in French and each year about 10 get an A, they are very likely to get an A. If they are number 10 or 11 in the ranking (and students won't always have a sense of this beyond the top two or three and not across classes) then they might get A* or A. This would have been the same in the exam really - those less secure within a grade, would be the ones who in the exam would be borderline and it could go either way.