The government should be made to fulfil their promise re Autumn GCSE sittings since there is now no appeals procedure. [Edited by MNHQ at OP's request]

[H0usePlant]

www.google.co.uk/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/education/2020/apr/22/schools-and-exam-boards-undermine-promise-to-pupils-of-september-tests

So having had the chance to sit GCSEs( understandable in the circumstances if schools don’t go back until the Autumn) the gov promised a robust appeals procedure and Autumn sittings. There is now no appeals procedure to speak off as regards actual results and it’s looking less likely there will be Autumn sittings.

They promised both originally and many kids are going to be really upset that through no fault of their own that there will be no chance to put right any issues with GCSE grades allocated. It will surely have an impact on the future chances of those wishing to attend Russel group unis.

Having read several year 11 threads it’s clear all schools aren’t adhering to advice that work from home after school stopped is not to be used.Many kids do cram( there is no gcse rule book prohibiting this), some kids will have had issues outside and inside school that will have an impact on grades being allocated without exams. Private schools have an added incentive for higher results and no Sats data. Teachers, schools and circumstances vary. As such it’s clear in all likelihood there will be discrepancies.

My dd has had an awful time and isn’t holding out much hope that she’ll get what she should/ could have done. She has been working hard since school left for Autumn sittings as that is what was promised. These appear to be disappearing too. Sitting GCSEs next summer whilst studying for A levels isn’t workable. They have hoards of free time and anxiety now. She is now feeling powerless to put right any discrepancies herself. We as parents will be powerless to do anything when results come out.

It’s shit and the gov should surely be offering money to exam boards to ensure exams are held in the Autumn as they promised.

By using the word bite you’re inferring you’re being teased.I speak as a frustrated, worried parent with an understandably( given the circumstances) worried child.

Have had empathy and patience but actually before saying they will provide something you’d think a gov department would be aware of the logistics involved.

Not teased just that I think you aren't listening very well.

The pandemic situation is literally changing daily. Sorry that the DfE didn't have a crystal ball.

If you don’t have a crystal ball, don’t say things will happen. They should have said from day one. Exams are cancelled. There will be no appeal system and no chance of sittings until next year.

Also studying for resist alongside starting s level course would not be the easiest. How many autumn gcses would she be wanting to take were they offered? Surely best to move on .
Focus on a levels. No reading or studying now will be wasted. She could turn it into an EPQ EPQ especially if she has a topic she loves. Why not look into EPQ and what it involves and start research now? If she knows already what she wants to study in uni choose an obscure unusual but related topic.
Read and start gathering research. EPQ can give student loads to talk about on a topic in an interview . Dd in state comprehensive did EPQ EPQ related to medicine field and got 3 med school offers including from 2 in top 10.

Unless of course it s gcse English or maths below a 4 no point planning to resit

That and a clearer outline re what work after the deadline can be used as there are clearly some hugely different interpretations of instructions amongst schools.

qips.ucas.com/qip/extended-project-qualification-epq

She could complete an EPQ in year 12 alongside a levels and get a head start on her subject and smash her interviews and personal statement.

All unis will know there was a pandemic in 2020.
Look for opportunities.

I don’t think it’s too much to expect some consistency and forward-thinking from the DofE, even in light of the circumstances.

I’m not sure you can just go off and do an EPQ without guidelines tbh, as there is a very specific format for writing these, including guidance on gathering / interpreting sources Snd the literature review that preceded the writing of the actual study. But yes, you could start to think about a topic for sure.

Another idea OP, could be for your DD to enter an essay completion in an area of interest. Have a search online. This kind of thing will look great on a UCAS form.

What is the difference between the grades she’s expecting and the grades she feels she could have achieved in exams? What are the grades, if I can ask that, and it a big difference?

By the way, the chance of resits for A-level candidates is similarly a cause of much confusion. First they were supposed to be in Sept. Now they’re apparently set for November. Will these exams be retracted too? Some universities are saying they will offer guaranteed deferred places if students make up the grades in the Autumn exams, but if a large proportion of current year 13s hi this route, it is likely to have a significant impact on the number of uni places available for the 2021 cohort. It just all seems very vague and inconsistent. Doesn’t exactly inspire confidence.

There was forward thinking. This then had to be changed as more information became available and the number of students expected to resit became more apparent.

It's all a huge unknown at the moment. The consultation is out, let's wait and see what happens after that.

@H0usePlant with regards work completed after 20th March - I think you need to realise that in simple terms, each school will have a range of grades to give out, based on prior performance of the school, of the cohort etc. So if your school has 5 x 9s, 10 x 8s, 20 x 7s etc to allocate in English, that isn't impacted by another school letting their children continue to do work.

Your school has the range of grades it has and it needs to give these out to its pupils and rank them. I don't see many schools suddenly giving a student a 7 based on work done after 20th March, if they were previously sure they would get a 5 or 6. I think schools are just setting additional work to add to their own internal data proving the grades they already plan to allocate. There may be one or two kids who they think were inching up to a 7 already and they want a bit more data to prove it - but if they do that for too many children, they will end up with too many high grades and the exam boards will knock them down.

So I don't think you should worry that what other schools are doing will affect your dd. Presumably the work she's been doing since Christmas had resulted in some improved homework and test marks already, before lockdown? Her school will know that and will predict accordingly.

Thanks Crazy that was an understable description and reassuring.

wonderwhatnext god what a worry. Those poor kids.

Crazy that's pretty much what I was trying to convey. The only difference where I am is that any work done afterwards is ignored. If we think they were close to a 7, odds are we'd put in a 7. This then gets compared to previous years and if there are huge discrepancies SLT will come back to us and we would have to adjust them up/down.

The entire country will not be ranked. They can't be, it's impossible.

Also remember private schools are very much trying to justify their fees for this term Hence continuing assessments etc.

It sounds like a really frustrating situation for your DD to be in, especially as she doesn't know her final grade and so will find it hard not to think through every scenario. I wonder if it might be helpful for her to go through the consultation from Ofqual and to respond to every item that affects her. She could also consider writing to Gavin Williamson and other relevant people to explain her situation. It's unlikely that a single teenager's story will determine what happens with autumn exams but the more circumstances Ofqual know about, the more likely it is that provision may be made. If Ofqual doesn't hear from distraught teens who've had a hard time throughout the course but were on track to do much better and feel they need the cushion of autumn exams, how can they be expected to consider the needs of that small group? Also, although pupils and parents mustn't harass teachers or try to influence centre grades, would your DD feel better if she were able to let her teachers know about the work she's been doing at home? Assuming the school knows about the hard time she's had over the course of her GCSE studies, maybe she could think about emailing teachers with a description of what she's been working on and an explanation that she is doing this for her own mental health e.g.
Dear Mrs History Teacher,
Since school was closed to most students I've been feeling very anxious about what that means for my GCSE grades and for my future. I had been expecting to need to sit some exams in the autumn and am finding it very hard know that I've heard autumn exams may not happen after all so I have responded to the Ofqual consultation and written to my MP about the impact it may have on me. I would find it helpful for my own peace of mind to let you know what I've been working on over the past few weeks...
I've continued to make flash cards with key facts and quotes on and have now covered all the different units. My mum has been testing me on them and I am making good progress. I've using Seneca and have worked through the units on the Great Depression, WW2 and the Elizabethan period. My test scores on those units are 70%, 67% and 69% so I'm quite pleased as those are higher than my scores before Easter. I've had a go at some 12 mark questions to improve my timing and to use the structure you gave us after the mocks. I'm hoping I'll be able to take A-level history so if there is anything particular you can recommend I prepare, please let me know...

Updating her teachers may feel useful and may result in some feedback in return. Your DD sounds incredibly motivated and it may be helpful for her mental health to know that by contributing to the consultation, she is feeding into the process and having her voice heard so she isn't entirely powerless, likewise updating teachers so they know she's still working. Perhaps you could also fill in the consultation and encourage other parents in a similar situation to do the same?

@H0usePlant I think the advice about letting your dd do whatever it takes to ease her anxiety is good. But also, try to convince her that even if her grades are disappointing, it probably won't have a long term impact. If she's not aiming for Oxbridge or medicine, I don't think she really needs to worry about GCSEs. But it's also good for kids to know that there are always second chances in the future, other ways to get somewhere, sometimes the long-winded route can be better.

My dd goes to a highly selective independent school and they haven't set any work since Easter. For what it's worth, it would probably have worked better for my dd if she'd been able to carry on submitting work. She's had some mental health problems over the last few months so a lot of the tests she did in Jan/Feb she didn't revise for as she was overwhelmed. She's much better now and if she was submitting work now, I know it would be better. But we've talked a lot about it and she knows it won't really affect her future. And overall, she's now glad not to have the stress of exams.

Help your dd to see the positives in the current situation. As I've said to dd, there's no guarantee that she'd have done better in the exams - maybe she'd have mistimed them, or not managed to revise the whole syllabus, or had a patch of poor mental health again.

The issue is no one knows anything right now.
No one knows about the potential second Wave in autumn, which could land us back with more cancellations.
It’s better to under promise and over deliver instead of being held account for something they couldn’t foresee.

We are all having to just ride it out and wait. No one has a definitive answer unfortunately. We just have to wait it out. I would be encouraging your daughter to keep ticking along in case, there will be resits available, as there always is (I was one who retook maths in the winter as I didn’t quite get a c, flew through the second time). A few people at my school did evening a level and gcse classes on top of what the school offered to increase the range.
There are all sorts of opportunities available to the under 25’s

The unknown is shit, more so when you can’t plan and your life feels onhold as a result. This one is going to take patience as no one can give you an answer in stone

Thank you so much for the last few posts. They’ve helped. Didn’t know about the consultation so looking at that.

There are very many of us with Year 11 children. You sound so stressed and that is not going to help your DD either. I don’t remember anything being written in stone about this and as previous posters have put it much better we are all trying to get through this the best way we can, including Education authorities. Spare a thought for others - give your DD a big hug and tell her it will be ok - many people are going through much much worse than this at the moment.

Thistimereally don’t need the “others have it worse”lecture. You have no idea re our circumstances outside of this.. She’s been handling everything amazingly and I’m proud of her. You’re allowed to get stressed and worry during a pandemic.

Sometimes it goes the other way my child's constantly predicted 6 throughout school and how he worked consistently went to just 4's when he sat exams as all went wrong on the day for him .
He still doing course he wanted which could leas to uni if wanted as well
At this stage I wouldn't panic until you know what grades you have and then wait and see what happens as it's all a bit unknown and as others have said this year will be well known about and I'm sure in future unis etc will take it in to account

They promised Autumn sittings and this messing around, vague rumours, going back on promises is causing anxiety.

Maybe reflect on this. Assume that she will be able to sit in Autumn if unhappy with her results, and try to switch off from the news/DfE updates, because they'll keep causing you anxiety.

I'm really not trying to judge, just to help. You sound like an awesome mum who really wants the best for your DD, but are getting quite anxious about things that aren't set in stone.

We don't know exactly how exams will end up being affected. You can't know what your DD's teachers are planning to give her (I hope it's better than you expect). Keep her working towards Autumn exams. The study will be beneficial even if the exams don't take place.

At some point, there will be a definite announcement. Until then, it's just new forms of uncertainty, and uncertainty causes anxiety in all of us.

MrsCanpbell’s child is being set work used for assessment for the next 3 weeks on top of the last 4 . That is nearly 2 months extra work that is going to be used as assessment.
I may not know the process but can see a blatant advantage when there is one.

This would only be the case if Mrs Campbell's child was in the same school as your daughter, in which case presumably she would also be getting the work.

Each school is going to be asked not only to predict a grade, but also to rank all their own pupils. The exam board will then look at that school's grades in previous years (so they can't predict 90 per cent 9s when last year they got zero and 60 per cent got 4 or less); but modify that further by using past performance of the class cohort as a whole so they can account for this year being significantly more or less able than previous years at that school.

You don't know yet that your DD's final results will actually be disappointing; or if they would have been better if exams had gone ahead as normal.

or if they would have been better if exams had gone ahead as normal.

You will never know this. Even with a resit. All you know from an Autumn resit is that you got a better grade after more months of study compared to the grade your teacher thought you would get.

OP you do sound like a good mum who really cares. I think sadly you are looking for answer where there are none. Her life won't be changed dramatically if she gets a 6 instead of a 7 or a 7 instead of an 8.