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Original poster

GCSE summer 2020 thread 6 - Carry on Corona Cohort, Further adventures aboard the Corona Charabanc.

961 replies

FoolsAssassin · 16/06/2020 21:06

The summer of discovidtent for the Corona Cohort trudging on towards results day.
Ofqual have done them a little video to explain their results:

Please feel free to join us to see what twists the next bit has in store for us all.

Thread 5
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Thread 1 year 10

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Zebracat · 02/08/2020 15:01

Oh crikey, so moved by your interest and knowledge, I feel a bit of an imposter as she isn’t my biological child. She is lovely and it has been very rewarding to watch her wake up , but of course it has also been really hard. My kids are grown up and there have been so many changes since they were at this stage. I won’t be shy to call upon your collective knowledge again, and I will let you know how she does on results day.

Original poster
FoolsAssassin · 04/08/2020 08:08

Phone call from existing school’s careers advisor - does DS have plans for September? Yes he’s holding a grade dependent offer for College as I told his tutor when she emailed to ask. And the other teacher who emailed to ask.

Apparently this time she will actually update his records.

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OrangeCinnamon1 · 04/08/2020 10:55

Oh dear @FoolsAssassin, hopefully once results are out they'll get the message once and for all.

BlueMarigold · 04/08/2020 11:27

For people who have applied to more than one 6th form school or college, is your child doing the transition work set by all of them?

aibuquestions · 04/08/2020 11:38

Has anyone seen the mess of SQA results today? the hashtag on twitter and online. Not boding well. Kids being bumped down numerous grades and getting lower than their mocks

Rhubardandcustard · 04/08/2020 11:51

@BlueMarigold
dd holding offers for 2 plus her existing senior school. She decided only to do the bridging work for her favourite college. It would have been too much work to do them all.

We decide that if things go really wrong with results and she ends up at one of her other choices she could say to them I didn’t do x but I did y and hope that would be enough for them to see she was working - and same subjects for most of the colleges so the work would still be useful that she’s completed.

Original poster
FoolsAssassin · 04/08/2020 11:56

Just reading about the Scottish results and people saying it's high achievers in traditionally lower achieving schools who are coming out badly, which is DS. He has to get 8s in 2 STEM subjects and at the start of the year I didnt think twice about it.

As the process has gone on friends have laughed at me when I started voicing slight doubts. Today I am increasingly concerned.

Do we know anything about whether the algorithm here is the same as SQA used ?

I have lost track as to whether there is now an appeals process or not in England?

DS not been doing the transition for second sixth form as to them he has been self studying computer science as couldn't do GCSE. He has been doing it for preferred school though.

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Monkey2001 · 04/08/2020 14:25

@FoolsAssassin I agree, but it looks like they may not have looked separately at small cohorts, which OFQUAL say they are going to do. One advantage SQA had was that every year teachers have to send in predictions to the exam board, so they have data about correlation between results and predictions. Still seem to be some results that don't make sense out there.

No appeals other than against the process, but scottish people do not have the opportunity to take the exam in the autumn.

Monkey2001 · 04/08/2020 14:26

I mean no appeals in England other than process-related.

OrangeCinnamon1 · 04/08/2020 14:28

I think @FoolsAssassin there is still some secrecy surrounding the algorithms..well at the least it not very explicit.
I think you are right the students at schools with a past of less achievement will suffer here.
This will affect small schools, improving schools etc but we can be assured that schools at the other end of the spectrum will not suffer as much. Hmm

Original poster
FoolsAssassin · 04/08/2020 14:44

Exams in autumn no good to us though with a change of institution on the cards. Hoping as long as they do look at the data for small cohorts it will be OK.

Also he's been through a selection procedure so been to workshops, sat exam and had interview so they do have a fair bit of data. They have said they will use the exam, interview, personal statement and teacher reference to decide.

Guess we'll get a better idea next week with A levels . Not the time to wobble, must hold my nerve.

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crazycrofter · 04/08/2020 14:46

@FoolsAssassin sorry to hear you're worried. Did anyone achieve 8s and 9s in Science at your son's school last year?

I don't think they could win really, as no one is going to accept that a result lower than their mock is right - whereas if it happened with an exam, there would be no arguing. And presumably it does happen every year.

I suppose teachers have put the highest grade they'd hope their pupils would attain on a good day - but that's bound to result in a skewed range of grades overall, as in an exam situation, loads of pupils don't achieve the highest grade they're capable of, for a whole host of reasons. The difficulty is that its an algorithm deciding that, rather than the performance of the pupil on the day.

Original poster
FoolsAssassin · 04/08/2020 15:10

I think so Crazycrofter , hard to actually.find results. I had to email 3 times to get the grade break down for last year's A levels by grade. It's a big school so more likely I think.

Am going to try and stop worrying as nothing I can do. Its just he worked so hard and has been so miserable at last 2 schools it would be so sad if he couldn't go.

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BlueMarigold · 04/08/2020 17:25

@FoolsAssassin I know how you feel. I guess the advice they are giving is they can sit again if they want to but I am personally not happy with that either! DD has not done any GCSE work since lockdown started and has been focused on her transition work. When school starts, she will be busy learning A-Level stuff and won’t want to be trying again for GCSES on the side.

If she wanted to sit again then it would have a detrimental effect on her A-Level learning.

We have said to DD only resit Maths and English if necessary and not worry about the other subjects unless it’s one of her A-levels in which case we would have bigger problems as she’d not be allowed to go to 6th form anyway.

Wheresthebeach · 04/08/2020 17:26

I don't understand how kids can be given grades that are lower than their mocks? Can anyone explain?

Northumberlandlass · 04/08/2020 18:17

I’ve been ‘watching’ the Scottish results thread & my heart goes out to some on there.

It makes me very nervous & while DS has a confirmed place at 6th form to do his a-levels regardless of his results, he has worked consistently hard over the last 2 years & I’d be disappointed for him if his results didn’t reflect that!

Piggywaspushed · 04/08/2020 18:30

What shocked me is that some students were failed. There was a girl on the news who had got a C for a prelim (mock) . This will be Highers or Advanced Highers and her 'result' was a 'no result' (the lowest grade available is D). How can a system statistically build in failure like that for an exam the girl didn't even sit? That seems very harsh. Hopefully that will be rare in our English system.

sandybayley · 04/08/2020 19:51

@Wheresthebeach - schools have different approaches to mocks. Some like DD's approach them in a way that gives 'reall' results - so I'm expecting her actual grades to be almost the same. DS1's school marks really hard and boys typically go up 1 or 2 grades. If a school ran mocks that were easy (maybe to encourage?) then final grades could certainly go down.

Every school I've come across has a different approach even down to timing. DD sat hers in October and DS sat his in January.

sandybayley · 04/08/2020 19:53

But I'm not familiar with the Scottish system so don't know if Scottish schools have a formalised prelim system compared to English schools DIY approach.

Wheresthebeach · 04/08/2020 21:23

@sandybayley - That makes sense. I'll try to control my breathing now..

sandybayley · 04/08/2020 21:25

And breathe! There's just too much information out there - we need a distraction!

Fiddlersgreen · 04/08/2020 21:36

Wow I haven’t seen any of that regarding the Scottish results. It’s quite scary.

DS has decided this week that he wants to change all of his A level choices Hmm
I said at the application stage that I wasn’t sure two of subject choices were the right choice for him but he insisted and I felt it had to be his decision and his teachers were supportive of his choices so I didn’t say any more.
Now he’s changing his mind. I don’t know if it’s cold feet now results day is looming but we’ve sent the email to the 6th form to ask if he can change. They did say courses can be changed at enrolment so should be ok, I just hope he’s making the right decision

EwwSprouts · 04/08/2020 21:59

Piggy That poor girl. Nothing can prepare you for a fail when you got a C in the mock and haven't sat a final exam.

PaddingtonPaddington · 04/08/2020 22:12

Had a quick look at Scottish thread and wish I hadn’t.
Does anyone know if they do decide to take the autumn exams what date the school need to enter them by? Hopefully not needed but just in case.

Monkey2001 · 05/08/2020 01:06

The Scottish results are odd. In general they are up massively on last year. I was shocked to see that for Advanced Highers 38.4% of candidates got an A, which gets the same UCAS points as an A* at A level, compared to 31.8% in 2019. That is a relative increase of almost 21% in the top grades. Grades were up significantly across the board. Of course that does not mean that everybody got grades at least as good as those they would have got in exams.

I am sorry if it sounds unsympathetic to Scottish students, but 66% got A/B at Advanced Higher (2019 = 57%, so increased by 16%) - I don't see OFQUAL allowing 66% of students to get A/A* at A level!

Data from www.sqa.org.uk/sqa/64717.html