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

[FoolsAssassin]

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.

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@neutralintelligence I think it’s crazy to set GCSE targets for every subject based on Maths and English tests taken when you were 11. I know children who are very artistic or musical but have low targets for these based on their SATs. And it works the other way too. Just because someone is good at maths and English, doesn’t mean they are going to be sporty, creative or good at performing arts. It just means they are good at maths and English or were taught by their schools how to do well in these particular exams. It doesn’t mean anything.

Luckily our school sets children on how they are actually doing and not on their SATS. They allow children to move between the sets each term.

Yes, I really don't understand all the targets/predictions. But I do know they were all below his mock results (apart from maths (as explained above, the teacher was trying to scare the bejesus out of them) and Spanish which he should never have taken but we believed all the ebac? stuff).
My expectations were based on old systems of getting targets based on how you actually performed (crazy, right) before all this computer modelling existed. I think my Ds school use some socio-economic factors, which have also counted against us, despite owning our own house in a nice-ish area - but most of the pupils houses at the school are worth more than ours. The school doesn't take account of parental education, despite the education level of the mother being a huge factor according to research in how a pupil performs. I am also from a background where being clever and education is more valued than being rich, so I do a poorly-paid but highly intellectual job. The school takes no account of any of this. It is a very good school and I wouldn't have changed my choice of school for Ds, but I would have stopped him doing the y6 SATs and pushed more for better target grades and maybe made a fuss about incorrect sets. The science sets were a political issue to some extent. The worst-performing pupils in set 1 were all girls and the pupils in set 2 out-performing them were boys, so they couldn't have changed the pupils' sets without undermining their (laudable) huge focus on girls in STEM.

@neutralintelligence the boy/girl thing is a whole can of worms for these exams. I am sure the "girls are steady workers, boys pull it out of the bag on the day" is a thing, obviously not for all DCs but certainly is for my two boys - DS1 did very little for most of Y10/11 and started working Easter of Y11. The Education Select Committee will be looking closely at whether whole groups like boys/girls are affected by the method of awarding grades this year.

It was unlucky for your DS, but lucky for the girls that your school chose to exercise some positive discrimination, although it may have been fairer to have 2 equal top sets. My DS's school set maths purely on results which resulted in a top set containing 25 boys and 5 girls which I was uncomfortable with.

"We also know that any statistical model will be unreliable with very small numbers. Where centres have entered a small number of students in a subject (either this year, or in the historical data), which is much more the case at A level than GCSE, we will rely much more on the CAGs than the statistics. "

From ofqual blog published 2 days ago on fairness in awarding:
ofqual.blog.gov.uk/2020/08/06/fairness-in-awarding/

Has anyone got any idea what they actually mean by "a small number "?

@LillyM50 there was an article in the TES saying that "small" was 5, and a taper would apply where there were 5-15 candidates. Looks like it is largely irrelevant for GCSEs other than some odd language ones.

Lilly- According to the TES article their sources told them that cohorts of 1-4 will be teacher predictions alone, 5-15 will be a combination of teacher prediction and statistical modelling and anything over 15 will be pure statistical modelling.

DD did Ancient Greek at GCSE and is doing it for A level.
Cohorts at current and new school less than 5 for both qualifications

Thank you @Monkey2001 @MadameMinimes

MY DD has less then 15 for a few GCES but the historical data for some of her GCSES was much smaller, looking 2 years back. She has also taken a GCSE with no historical data at all so that will be interesting.

Proggy I don't think it will be subject teachers in for results so no goodbyes, I think it will be exams officer, head of year 11, couple of deputy heads & I think there are two heads of sixth form. School plan seems to be give pupils the results envelope then shoo them on to playground to open with mates 'in a socially distanced fashion'. Parents are to stay outside school. Can't think why that would be

@EwwSprouts

Proggy I don't think it will be subject teachers in for results so no goodbyes, I think it will be exams officer, head of year 11, couple of deputy heads & I think there are two heads of sixth form. School plan seems to be give pupils the results envelope then shoo them on to playground to open with mates 'in a socially distanced fashion'. Parents are to stay outside school. Can't think why that would be

DD School is not in our town and we parents are not allowed in ...consequently no idea where to park ....tesco car park seems likely I may have to do a weekly shop whilst she collects just to distract myself.

Me neither Eww
I’m surprised at the schools that are doing ‘face to face’ on results day yet are not allowing parents to park in school grounds.
There is to be no verbal communication of CAG or rank at DDs school-requests are to be written and via email to exams officer by the pupil.
Perhaps this is why parents are allowed on site?

Away for a few days but I just wanted to wish all the parents on here expecting results for their Y13 DC on 13th as well as being back again on the 20th...best of luck to you all! sandy; kingscote, monkey and others that I’ve missed!

Lily - no historical data they will use cags.

Neutralintelligence - sometimes those stupid SATS predicted grades just stay the same all the way through at some schools and are immovable. The teachers know this though and should still be giving the grade based on your DC's work and marks.

If their grades are markedly different I would ask for their CAG their rank and also what factors they used to assess their grades. If they say they used the SATS then I would ask them to appeal saying you believe it is an error in process to use them other than as a measure for prior cohort achievement at the awarding body's standardisation process.

@ealingwestmum - you're very kind. Yes, anxiety building up now for Thursday. I feel a bit sorry for DD that her looming results are being overlooked because we're focussed on DS1's - but it does mean she is quite chilled.

DD also has a holiday in Italy to look forward to (as do I) on Saturday so we're not too hard done by. She'll be receiving her results in a rather stunning location 😀

I hope my question doesn't sound too strange,
When my DD did her mocks they only did one paper in maths and English Lang and Lit (as I understand it there is three for maths?)
Was this the same for everyone else as I was wondering apart from the rank order of pupils in the class how they could get a fair representation of what she's capable of from only doing one mock paper?

@whoamitojudge I can’t answer your question I’m afraid but my DS is in the same boat, some of our mocks were only one paper.
Also in geography, they sat both papers but hadn’t finished the course yet and the last two questions on one of the papers were on a topic they hadn’t covered yet.
Also as my son was moved down to set2 in maths but still sat the higher paper, there were parts his class hadn’t gone over but set1 had.

Can anyone recommend a careers counsellor who would be available via Zoom after results day to talk through grades and next steps with A levels and University plans?

whoamI, I would have thought having taught them for a reasonable amount of time the teachers would have a very good idea of how they would be likely to perform based on how they do in class, the tests most seem to do regularly , end of year exams and homework. What has happened will benefit those who go to pieces in exams I would think.

Sorry, can’t help on the careers advisor. My Dad was one but retired far too long ago.

It doesn't really matter how much content had been done, or how many mocks : the mocks are a guide , really, for how well kids do under exam conditions. I always thought they existed mainly for the benefit of students to understand the pressures of revision,and what it is like to sit in a big exam hall. Mocks have increasingly been used ,though, to 'gather data' and 'make predictions' and so more and more emphasis is being put on them as if they are the real thing in miniature.

No teacher will have looked at mock and mock alone to predict a result : in fact, all the advice beforehand said not to do that but to look at a range of evidence. Apart form subjects with NEAS, what students do after mocks is rarely much different , in terms of skills : i's generally more of the same!

What has happened will benefit those who go to pieces in exams I would think.

This is definitely true . I predicted a girl a 7 who could easily have crashed and burned. It was nice to be able to reflect her actual ability, and not her anxiety.

I think that is the real reason why the teacher predictions have been higher than usual eventual outcomes : we had to assume everyone would revise , and that no one would have a meltdown in our exam , because those were total unknowns really. So, you assume 'on a good day' with everyone. like with UCAS predictions.

Is there a way to predict how your child will do depending on the school they go to? If a school doesn’t publish their results in a subject/grade breakdown and all you have to go on is the stats on the compare school website? Can you work things out by ranking the schools in a particular way?

Bit of a random one but has everyone informed HMRC that their child is staying in education? If not there's a form you can fill in online. Child benefit will stop on 31 August if you haven't let them know.

I think many will have had a letter about this already (through the school?) but we didn't. Then again DS hasn't had his NI number either - phoned them up and it's because they have his address as where we lived two houses ago, we left there when he was 3!

Here's the link to the form:

www.gov.uk/government/publications/child-benefit-child-continuing-in-approved-education-or-training-ch297

Thanks for the reminder @singingstones. Dd hasn’t had her NI number either!

@aibuquestions Lucy Parsons Academic Coach should be able to help. She is great i think it's ok to link as you asked?

Drop her a line if you can't see exactly what you need.

DS had his NI number but I think I managed to throw it away . Probably need to get in touch with them.