Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. Child-safe in minutes.

Meet the Other Phone.
Child-safe in minutes.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
Secondary education

Connect with other parents whose children are starting secondary school on this forum.

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
Thread 4
Thread 3
Thread 1 year 10

OP posts:
Thread gallery
5
EwwSprouts · 10/08/2020 09:19

maybe they can assume everyone would do a bit better in the real thing, but I don't think they can decide who would have worked harder in April and May and inflate their grades relative to those of other students This is where the last minute crammers have been stuffed by the system. They didn't know that what they thought they were aiming for would be removed. Parents evening in Feb all his teachers said they expected DS to go up a grade if he got his head down with revision as they knew, and he admitted, he'd been coasting and didn't revise for mocks. School have been quite clear in communications over CAG & rankings the only objectively fair way was to totally go on mocks/tests/working at level. They have not factored in any 'gut feel' over whether a pupil would 'pull it out of the bag or not'. As a parent I accept that is transparent & fair.

RoiseCap · 10/08/2020 10:25

@practicallyperfectwithprosecco sending your DD lots of good wishes, it sounds very like a very tough time for her. One of our neighbours’ girls got a D in maths GCSE every time she took it until year 13, but she did finally get it and is now at an arts university where she’s thriving. It’s frustrating but hundreds of pupils every year resit to get the 4/C grade, so it will be nothing to be ashamed of if she does miss the grades she wants - especially as this year is so crazy!

stoneysongs · 10/08/2020 10:35

Agree @EwwSprouts, the teachers have no choice but to use the evidence available. It's just a shame that the last minute crammers will be disadvantaged when they haven't done anything wrong Sad

SeasonFinale · 10/08/2020 10:44

whoamItojudge - each school decides what info it will use to decide the grades. If your school doesn't mark homework they won't use it.

Original poster
FoolsAssassin · 10/08/2020 10:52

practicallyperfectwithprosecco that is really tough on your DD, I really feel for you all. My DD struggled her way through school and it was touch and go whether she would scrape enough GCSES to get into 6th form (she has SEN) and technically she didn’t as only got 4 but they let her in.

She has come into her own with age, just takes her that bit longer to get there. Still hasn’t got Maths GCSE but she is at a very solid University doing something she really enjoys finally after a very round about way of getting there. A lot of her friends are overseas students and it is a standing joke that they all had to get great grades and she blagged her way in with not a lot. She is very gritty and keeps going until she gets where she wants to be.

Hang in there and if things don’t go to plan (and hopefully they will) it is far from the end of the story.

OP posts:
LillyM50 · 10/08/2020 11:22

Just read article by Ofqual Chair (link below) which says:

"We expect the vast majority of the grades awarded to be within one grade of the centre assessment grades submitted by teachers. "

Does anyone know if we are able to find out assessment grades submitted by teachers? Can schools day no?

Any if the grades are awarded more than one grade out, is that grounds to appeal if the school can prove this years of student was expect the outperform previous years?

Thank you all. I know I won't sleep a wink on 19th. I am really crossing my fingers for all !!

Piggywaspushed · 10/08/2020 11:42

If a child's assessment changes by two grades, then my understanding is others will too, which is what is odd. They have always said they won't alter the rank order.

MadameMinimes · 10/08/2020 11:55

Not necessarily Piggy. Let’s say you awarded 7 9s, 3 8s and 5 7s. They might agree with you that there should be 15 at grade 7+ but think that it should be 3 9s, 3 8s and 9 7s. Your top 3 9s would be unchanged and so would all of your 7s. The next 3 9s would all go down by one grade and so would all of the 8s. Your lowest ranked 9 would go down by 2 grades.

RedskyAtnight · 10/08/2020 11:59

You might end up with a situation where Ofqual's model thinks you have awarded too many 4+. In this case potentially every child with a 4 and the bottom ranking 5s will move down. What couldn't happen would be one of the 5s moving down to a 3, without every single one of the 4s also moving down.

RedskyAtnight · 10/08/2020 12:02

... and I really hope there aren't any examples of 5s moving down to 3s. It would be very hard to explain how "teacher thinks pupil is comfortably passing" becomes "actually pupil has failed". Particularly if it's in maths or English where pass/fail is a huge deal. A 9 (say) moving down to a 7 would be much less important (I absolutely recognise it would be a big disappointment to the individual student but less likely to impact their future in such a tangible way).

stoneysongs · 10/08/2020 12:03

I guess they could decide a school has been too generous across the board and adjust everyone down by one grade, and also shift where the next grade starts?

So school's CAGs and ranking is:

  1. John A*
  2. Paul A*
  3. George A*
  4. Ringo A*
  5. Pete A

And after moderation they might be:

  1. John A
  2. Paul A
  3. George A
  4. Ringo B
  5. Pete B

Ranking order is the same but poor Ringo has gone down 2 grades Sad

practicallyperfectwithprosecco · 10/08/2020 12:48

Thanks all for the supportive messages, what will be will be I guess.

Fortunately for her, the school is the best performing school in the area and nationally high up in the league tables, they have always had a high percentage of top performing pupils. So if they do use school data that is a bonus

Monkey2001 · 10/08/2020 13:07

The number of scottish students going down 2 grades was tiny, Piggy quoted them above, but it was around 10 in total. IB was worse because they did not rank.

A level students are worried where there is a very able student who is on for an A*, but the school has had nothing higher than a C for a couple of years. This will not be the same for GCSE because the numbers at each centre will be bigger. It is extremely unlikely that you will see anything going down 2 from teacher predictions, I just hope that people don't see all their grades caught on the threshold and pulled down.

Wheresthebeach · 10/08/2020 13:18

I can imagine students at the bottom of each ranking getting pulled down across the board.

Wheresthebeach · 10/08/2020 13:18

Trying, and failing, not to obsessively worry.

ClarasZoo · 10/08/2020 13:41

Scotland are going to announce something tomorrow. I hope that it is CAG awarded or my idea, to give a certificate with both results on, and the higher counts....

LillyM50 · 10/08/2020 13:51

@ClarasZoo That would be positive! It's been such a difficult journey for everyone already. My DD hasn't been herself the last few weeks. I am showing a brave face and continually re-assure her all will be fine. I think we will get a flavour of what's to come on Thursday.

MadameMinimes · 10/08/2020 14:23

The students at the very bottom of the rank order (in any significantly sized cohorts) are going to be ones who the teacher thought were borderline between that grade and the next one down. I know that our lowest ranked students at GCSE were very marginal and in a normal year, with exams, a good number of them would have got the lower grade. I know people will be worried but most schools used statistical modelling before sending their predictions anyway. I can’t imagine anyone other than genuinely marginal kids getting lower grades than their predictions at my school. We know that our predictions are very close to what we’ve got in the past and I’m sure that’s the case in most schools, especially for big subjects like English and Maths. There is also now the option for schools to appeal if they think they can prove a significant change in circumstances which could be important for rapidly improving schools who may have lost out. I really don’t envision CAGs being allowed to stand, and to be honest I don’t think it would be fair if they did. It would make employers and sixth forms really sceptical of the value of this year’s grades as a whole and disadvantage to whole cohort.

OrangeCinnamon1 · 10/08/2020 14:33

I know i'm in a position where sixth form colleges entrance requirements are not ridiculously high but we have just decided to work with what happens on results day. Dd is one of those who swears she would have pulled it out of the bag to get 'everything above 7' , she is a standard B grader and truth is, as I said to her when this all started, we have no way of knowing that for sure she could have done that...or how hard everyone else has worked. We just have to try and be pragmatic on the day and work best we can with what is in front of us. If resits for English and Maths required so be it.

MadameMinimes · 10/08/2020 14:54

That sounds like a very sensible attitude to have.

Wheresthebeach · 10/08/2020 14:54

So the announcement tomorrow in Scotland will be what...?

Are they going to reinstate grades? It feels like a farce

Monkey2001 · 10/08/2020 15:08

Re-instating the grades would also be a problem as some schools were more rigorous than others on avoiding grade inflation. Changing the rules during the process could be problematic.

MadameMinimes · 10/08/2020 15:08

No idea, but my guess would be some form of equality impact adjustment to redress some of the difference between disadvantaged and more affluent students or a change to the appeals process.

If there’s a decision to get rid of the moderation process and just let all of the CAGs stand then that will massively advantage students whose schools wildly over predicted at the expense of those who attend schools that predicted sensibly. The whole point of the moderation process was to ensure that there was consistency and fairness between centres. If they just scrap it entirely then everyone will know that 2020 results are over-inflated which will affect the credibility of the qualifications of every student who should have sat exams this year.

Cherryonthetop2019 · 10/08/2020 15:13

So I’ve been emailing the local independent schools about the possibility of DD retaking year 11. One has said outright no but we are in talks with another one. I refuse to let this bloody pandemic undo years of hard work to get up from predictions of 2/3 to grades 5/6 and then have the rug pulled out from under DD’s feet. It’s an extreme measure but this whole thing is driving me nuts!!