GCSE and A-level guidance has been issued

[TheletterZ]

The guidelines for the GCSE and A-levels has now come out.

assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/877842/Summer_2020_grades_for_GCSE_AS_A_level_EPQ_AEA_in_maths_-_guidance_for_teachers_students_parents.pdf

Main points, schools will come up with the grades using their professional judgement and performance in exams, assessments, in class etc...
They will then rank the students in each grade band.
This will then be subject to statistical analysis by ofqual and might be adjusted.
The results will be published ahead of the usual schedule and certificate will look exactly the same as any other year.

Maybe. But then again, PRUs are pretty heterogeneous, depending in local commissioning arrangements.

Not really fair some kids are getting an indication re results, shouldn’t we all be getting that so we can plan accordingly.

Everything seems so variable.

@noblegiraffe that's what I thought. But it will inevitably lead to more students with straight 9's, and that will cause some people to (unfairly) cry foul.

Students should not be getting an indication, and the (single) example of a hearsay indication is poor professionalism on the part of the teacher.

Not really fair some kids are getting an indication re results

Your kid should have some idea of what result they are going to get.

Teachers don’t know what results a kid will get. What they send off and what the kids get are not the same thing.

A teacher should obviously not be letting kids see the spreadsheet.

more students with straight 9's

You’re assuming that data will be made available.

in reality most of these won't get straight 9's because there is a high chance that they will have at least oe bad day - they might misinterpret a question, accidently miss a question out, or just have a brain-freeze.
Teachers can’t work out who amongst their high achieving hard workers would have had a random bad day for that exam. But I wonder if they will try to normalise a bit with discussion between subjects - EG if ten pupils get grade-9’s in their subject usually and they have fourteen top contenders, the bottom seven of whom are hard to rank, similar subjects with the same issues might ensure those seven 9/8 boundary pupils are listed in a different order so that all of them get one or two 9’s?

Your child should have a reasonable idea of what they were excepting to get. The DfE have been explicit in that grades teachers input should NOT be shared.

Yes auto, keep studying. Most schools will send you something if you ask. Are you expecting your child to continue with all subjects or just a few? If argue all subjects is futile. Focus on the core that may be barriers to entry later on. So make sure they will have 4+ in English and Maths. The rest are largely irrelevant post A Level. (If they are barely passing GCSEs they shouldn't be doing A levels).

AFAIK there is some way to check how many students got 9s across the board as these numbers were released last year. I don't know if exam boards will do this to moderate for bad days etc. This feels unfair.

Not really fair some kids are getting an indication re results, shouldn’t we all be getting that so we can plan accordingly.

No! Kids should NOT be getting their results. They should have an idea of the grade they're working at though. Just because some have been given their teacher grade and will get away with it doesn't mean everyone else should. Maybe because some people rob banks and get away with it everyone should be able to.

I agree teachers should not be leaving out spreadsheets when they have a year 11 child about. I agree most kids have a good prediction of their grades. I could accurately predict my sons I think, maybe 90% at least. As he’s got predictions and did mocks - and in his mocks he got a bit higher than some predictions.

So how are NEAs going to work? Will the 'marks' for an NEA component be given to students at results time so they can decide how 'close' they were and whether to sit exams in Autumn/next year?
The guidance says that schools don't need to submit NEA marks, but surely these WILL be needed, so will need to be done methodically/properly?

You seem determined that this system is unfair aut0replenish. It's really the fairest thing they could have done. There are a good amount of checks and balances to make sure that schools don't over-egg their assessments, and to be blunt the grades awarded will be as robust as any that would have been awarded has they sat exams. It really is as good as it can be.

Herc tbh if I were the government I would be releasing as little of this corona exam data as I could get away with. Having people pick at it post hoc, potentially exposing flaws (which there will be) would undermine the results for the entire cohort, who are already shafted by circumstance.

Will the 'marks' for an NEA component be given to students at results time

No. If NEAs are currently unmarked they will remain unmarked, if they are unfinished they will remain unfinished. If the marks are available they will be used to inform the predicted grade but not in the same way as they would have done. There will be no consistency in application here.

Agreed noble. The less data released the better! Picking over it helps no one. We have to trust teachers and then ofquals modelling process.

NEAs will surely be used by teachers to inform the teacher assessment grade? I don't know how they will work for resits, will resits possibly be 100% exam?

No Titchy not determined to say it’s unfair just struggling with and worried about a shitty situation which is more than understandable imvho.She really doesn’t know re grades.Only in a couple of subjects has she got a vague idea as what little data we have is vaguely consistent. All the other subjects are all over the place, literally range from low grades to high in some subjects, no idea how to calculate possible grades from that. Wondered about plonking a pin right in the middle but then you don’t know what other data they have we haven’t seen. The past couple of years have been a blur for her.She’s def an Alevel type of student. Will get high grades in 2 of her A level subjects, poss 8s but maybe 7s.It was a case of covering holes she’d missed due to MH in run up to GCSEs not competence. Def not expecting a raft of 8s but need some 6s and 7s and passes in all.

Will try and look at what little we have to work out poss grades again and pick 4/5 to focus on. Would be good if school could support us in that but they’re obviously not going to as it’ll be skirting too close to telling grades.

Hoping she gets enough for 6th form. Starting a new school.Needs 8 could potentially only get 7 subjects. Hence over compensating with studying several GCSE subjects in order to cover her back iykwim.

For a Y11 student at this point to have no idea of a predicted grade or expected result is highly unusual.

I think this should be the new way forward to have students working consistently for 2 years and marked on 2 years rather than just an exam.
I said this to my dd who was to do GCSE which are now cancelled and she admits that she did not work hard last year so I'd they knew it was their final grade they would put in more effort all the time.

NEAs will surely be used by teachers to inform the teacher assessment grade? I don't know how they will work for resits, will resits possibly be 100% exam?

That would be nigh on impossible/grossly unfair for a subject such as Drama or Design where 60% is practical? (A level )

I had already had conversations with all my year 11s about their predicted grade before exams were cancelled. I would say that’s pretty normal for most teachers.

Did your daughter not get grades predicted for 6th form applications?

Really😩We honestly don’t know what we should be looking at. Her mocks were a disaster and all other homework/ assessments and tests all over the place. Some good, some ok and some bad.Think mostly passes though.We don’t know what key bits of evidence they’ll be using or putting emphasis on.Maybe we’re doing it wrong, what should we be looking at? Didn’t realise everybody else was so consistent and informed. Doesn’t bode well. 😩

Andi it’s a nice idea to rely on teacher assessments but the issue is that for schools and teachers the exam results are very high stakes. How many people would genuinely give grades that would prevent pay progression? Promotion? Or even induce capability procedures?

No we just had all the 8s and 9s from Sats as predictions against mock results.< hollow laugh>