GCSE’s summer 2020 thread 5 - And then there were none..

[FoolsAssassin]

Once upon a time there was a group of year 11 students who had spent the last few years preparing to sit their GCSE exams in the summer of 2020. Then one day they woke up and found themselves as characters in a real life disaster movie and as if by magic the exams disappeared.

What lies next for the Corona Cohort?!

Thread 4
Thread 3
Thread 2
Thread 1 (Year 10)

Anyone lurking please feel free to jump on in .

DD had received nothing until Monday when her Biology teacher sent through some A Level prep work (optional).. She said she will do it, I said I know ;-) I was trying to leave her to her own devises as she is normally great at doing what needs to be done - but she hasn't done any work since the day she left so I think I need to get her started... Fitness wise she seems very motivated.

Flexible A level bridging work here too for each of the A level options chosen (student had to ‘opt in’ to each subject to access the material), these will run till the end of June.
There is not a huge amount of work for each course though and by no means a full timetable - DS1 did the biology one last night and spent about 1.5 hours on it. But it’s better than nothing and will at least keep his mind engaged.

There has been some gcse completion work posted online too with encouragement from teachers to finish it, sadly said encouragement is falling on deaf ears with DS though...

No bridging work set here yet. There has been some GCSE work set but mainly in subjects that ds is not keeping on. I think he has done it all anyway but the volume is not really enough to keep him properly busy.

2 weeks finishing off the GCSE curriculum, then a choice of 6 subjects + 'Life skills' - how mortgages work/driving theory/budget creation/touch typing for those who are under 30wpm/reading groups/first aid/OS maps/loads of other stuff I can't remember.

@KingscoteStaff that life skills stuff sounds great!

Yes the life skills stuff looks great, far more useful than most of the work being set!

Mine is on usual timetable until study leave 6/5, just finishing a couple of courses, revision type questions, a few past papers etc. Most involve some face-to-face contact for at least part of the lesson. Some homework.

After that, we have been told intro to the a level courses until half term, and then nothing.

DD is actually going elsewhere for a levels, but we haven't heard anything from there yet.

Our school has written saying be aware that the Ofqual guidance is still subject to change due to a public consultation until 29th April.
I see it's this: www.gov.uk/government/consultations/exceptional-arrangements-for-exam-grading-and-assessment-in-2020
and it says "..there are implementation decisions we must make, including the changes to our regulatory framework. We propose which of our rules we plan temporarily to set aside or change."
Can anyone interpret what this might mean to the substance of what we already know, or is it just tweaking at this point?

Sorry - I checked back on the thread and see it's been discussed! Ignore me!

Why are some schools still allowing their students to complete their NEAs towards their GCSEs ? I thought the guidance from Ofqual was this wasn't advised ?
My son's school have said not to submit anything new work and one teacher even sent the relevant section from the guidance explaining why he could no longer provide feedback or accept a NEA from my son, but some of his friends at other schools are being asked to continue working on their NEAs and have been given a deadline of next week to submit.. doesn't seem fair to me, I can only assume these schools don't have enough data to use in their assessments or want evidence to award a higher grade ?
My DS never got to submit his computing NEA but wasn't too bothered as in normal circumstances this wouldn't go towards the final GCSE grade but his friends at the other schools have been asked to complete theirs and submit to help with assessment.. just seems so inconsistent across schools.

It is inconsistent and they should not be accepting any more work. The guidance so far has been very clear on this.

happy Yep I know schools who are doing this too. It is unfair.

There is a lot of unfairness around, particularly for the lower years. Many private schools are still teaching to timetable and even have registration. The state schools I know are sending out work which is pretty much optional, and providing little support. This will increase the gap next year. I am very glad my state educated kids are not in Y10 or Y12.

For Y11, as the results will be moderated at school level, it should not matter that much how they work out their rankings, it should not affect the overall grades the school gets, just the way they are distributed.

I guess some school may view finishing an NEA as not being 'more work'. Most NEAs can be done at home so it is not in breach of that idea that they may somehow be advantaged by doing it remotely..

I was in a difficult spot as three of mine hadn't finished the last bit of the NEA which has to be done at school under supervision so obviously I couldn't accept that.

The thing about NEAs is they do comprise vital evidence so I can see why school want those. I think it is a different scenario and imagine state schools are finishing them off too, but not chasing up ones who don't. My DS was asked to do something with his music NEA.

It is frustrating that Ofqual seem to have forgotten about NEAs. They aren't mentioned in the guidance (other than a tiny section about not treating NEAs as being that important!) , and my exam board has no idea whether people who reenter for exams In the autumn will also have to submit their NEA. If they do, you can see school would want them now instead, especially, of having to chase departed year 13s up for them, then mark and moderate them at that point.

On the NEA case in particular, then, I don't think that is 'unfair'. I imagine most schools just had a bit of finishing off to do with them.

The bit I had difficulty with, from knowing what was going on in a few different schools, was that past papers etc were being set with the understanding ‘we could use this as extra evidence of your grade’. I can imagine this was a strong incentive for parents and Google to get involved. I understand the NEA bit you can do at home normally as that makes sense.

Oh definitely the first thing is not in the spirit of it all. I suspect monkey is correct that theses are schools without very good evidence trails, or private schools justifying fees, perhaps.

I think my issue is if my son had been allowed to work on his music NEA in the weeks since he finished school he would have had loads of time to improve it as he wouldn't have had the stress of working on his other 9 subjects. As his school has said they can't accept any new submissions the teacher will be basing her final assessment on a draft version he had submitted for feedback. Whereas students at other schools are being allowed to submit NEAs that have been updated and finished in the last few weeks.
On Computing the NEA was probably the part of the syllabus my DS was strongest on, but he didn't even get to submit to his teacher. In normal circumstances this does not form part on the final GCSE, but if his school had decided to use the NEA as part of their assessment like other schools seem to be, it could have contributed to a higher grade.

I think the message that you can 'improve' an NEA is the probme here. There are very very strict rules about teacher input on an NEA so relaly the schools asking for NEAs form stduents shouldn't be giving too much guidance/ marking.

They are probably just asking for what the students have or can do sot hat they can have a ballpark idea of what students might have gone on to achieve. (and possibly so it is 'done' if they resit in autumn)
With my subject , for example, we are allowed to look at work twice and give general feedback : we are not allowed to 'correct' work or give detailed guidance as to what to include. At the end of the day, NEAs comprise 30% max of a GCSE so it's not a huge thing.

Apart from music which is worth more...

As I said there was no specific guidance on NEAs and the teachers may have contacted the exam board for advice.

Meant to say, as well, that if the teachers is looking at a draft, she will be aware of how much students generally and normally improve upon drafts and will be building that in.

Because of absence, one of my students had only done one piece of her NEA : but I could tell from that what the final outcome was most likely to be. Don't worry!

On the topic of NEAs DDs music was worth 60%, drama 60% and textiles 50%. Music was finished and drama and textiles nearly finished but no expectation to do any further work on NEAs or GCSEs at all post school closure.

The sixth form have now sent through links to A level bridging work for DD to start much to her annoyance! She’s said she’ll start next week.

DS has his 16th birthday tomorrow Bit low key , some party food ,a cake made my a near neighbour and an IOU.

He did say it probably wouldn't have been much more exciting under normal circumstances, apart from a meal out and an actual present(s)!

Ahh - happy birthday to your son for tomorrow Piggy - I'm sure you'll do your best to make it special with a promise to celebrate more fulsomely later on.

One of DD’s sixth form options wrote to her today. They are planning to do their July induction days online. Dd has been feeling a bit low the last couple of days and I don’t think this has helped. Will they even be going to sixth form in September?

Thanks little !