GCSE Summer 2020 Thread 7 : Carry on Corona Cohort, Cruising or Crawling to The Final Countdown

[OrangeCinnamon1]

Welcome all to the 7th Thread for this year's GCSE cohort ...or the Corona Cohort as has been termed by @FoolsAssassin.

Some of us have been here since I started first thread back in 2010, some will be new. Everyone has been friendly and helpful in the past. It is hoped this will continue. Going forward we intend to stay in secondary so any new threads should have 'GCSE Summer 2020 Thread # : Carry on Corona Cohort' in title just to make it easier to find.

From now on our DS/DD may go down various paths so we decided not to be exclusionary and stay right here in Secondary

Thread 1 The first GCSE yr 10

Thread 6 last thread

I will link the other threads ...just on my mobile and is fiddly!

Thanks @OrangeCinnamon1 😊
Checking in...

DS - from his last predicted grades the teachers thought the following were likely - 1x9 and a mix of 8/7/6.

He’s been told he can do his A-level choices (biology, chemistry & PE) & is staying at the same state school.

Just thought I’d provide a summary!

Lovely thread.

Brilliant ! DD is over on Student Room forum , I've got here .. We won't be alone on 19th !

Thanks for the new thread.

but it does seem more humane to give the benefit of the doubt in a global health catastrophe than be mean and thrifty with the passes and assume some of those pupils would have failed,

This is the crux of it for me. Why would government/exam boards decide to take the approach most likely to hurt rather than to be generous in time of global catastrophe, punishing innocent youngsters who will have to live with these poor manufactured results for the rest of their lives? Like I’ve said many times, it’s not simply about ‘getting the grades for the next stage’, for some it will mean the difference between meeting the criteria for certain universities, apprenticeships or not. My DS has worked very, very hard alongside crippling MH issues and to have it all snatched away from him just because he is not at a school that gets top results every yr is grossly unfair.

Thank you very much OrangeCinnamon

It's so hard, it really is. I feel sorry for the current y10s and 12s if they do take teacher predictions. In some ways, they were already more screwed by all this time off than ours were.

Totally agree @Shimy .. and as they said whilst trying to fix the omnishambles in Scotland it's about giving the young people faith in the system and themselves. Sounds like you've had a tough year to contend with exams and MH, hope next week brings good news.

And many thanks to OrangeCinnamon1 (difficult to spell that one, how many ns does it have?)

Hello

I’m wondering what if any effect what’s happened in Scotland over their grades will have on A levels and GCSEs. Although presumably A levels must be completely finalised by now and GCSEs will probably be

Hello everyone
Daydreams of air conditioning
Just pulling up a chair.

We certainly live in interesting times. If Wales follow Scotland I can see major ructions on the horizon for England. I wonder whether they might offer a compromise position of allowing individual appeals, or saying that grades must be within one grade of CAGs - differentiating from Scotland on the basis that England has the autumn exam series as a fallback.

Thanks @OrangeCinnamon1

My DD is now unsure about her A level subjects! She was down to do
Biology, Psycholoy and PE. She wants to do a Biology degree (or similar) and knows that ideally would be better with Chemistry or Maths but she isn't strong enough to get As at A Level so opted for PE and Psyschology as many of the RG unis accept as a 2nd science.

I thought PE was a good option as a back up in case she didn't get the grades she needed to study Biology but it turns out DD isnt interested at all in Sports Science etc, so no point in doing it really, except that she is good at it and does enjoy it. She loves History and may get and 8/9 (who knows).. so I'm sure she could do well at Alevel with hard work.

I'm finding it hard as really not sure what to advise her, it's got to be her decision and I don't think either would be wrong. But do wonder on paper if Biology, Psy & History look better than B/Psy/PE.. especially as she will be competing against students with Biology Chemistry and Maths potentially... She will be doing Core Maths so that may help..

Any advice welcome - also gives a break from thinking about GCSE results :-)

@PatienceVirtue - from the genus Cinnamomum which is difficult to say !

Hi @mirandaWest who knows? Difficult to work out what will happen until we actually get the results. It was always the case that whatever happens someone was going to lose out

I really hope there can be a shift back to coursework in future....but we live in hope.

Thanks Orange.

Heifer I have heard that PE at A level very hard to get top grades as linked to the teams you play for or something along those lines which is why a lot of our local schools offer the BTEC instead. I could be very wrong about this, am trying to recall a conversation.

Thank you.

@Shimy - thanks.
My DS also had crippling MH issues this year - he basically broke his mental health working so hard and worrying so hard and it almost killed him. That is why it matters that he gets the marks he got in his mocks. I worry getting lower grades than he should have in this anonymous system that only cares that no-one gets a pass or a good mark if there is a chance they 'might' not have got in an exam is going to send him into a crisis again.
Plus of course getting the marks you need simply to move on to the next stage doesn't work if you want to study medicine or something like that. They do look at GCSEs and they want the best.
A good grade that someone occasionally questions is far better than a lower grade that is forever devalued and can only be fixed by the huge effort and trauma of a retake. Retakes might never be possible with lockdowns. Pupils haven't been taught since March and won't get weeks off for revision and revision materials and past papers and revision sessions. The massive effort that would have gone into the exams if they had taken place in early summer will not be possible in the autumn. How is that an acceptable solution to a pupil who has had a mark downgraded. I can't see how anyone could want hundreds of thousands of pupils to be downgraded by even one mark from what their own teacher believes they would have achieved.

It is probably a pie in the sky dream but I fo wonder why we have such a comprehensive exam system at this point? Surely there must be some other way for medical schools to ensure they get the best and the brightest? There must be another way to ensure that the required level of English and Maths is achieved for whatever happens next? I just feel like the system is fragile, like a house of matchsticks ...unless everything else is in place it doesn't seem to work.

@Heifer @FoolsAssassin DS has been told that all of his practical part of PE is outside of school & he’s basically on his own with it as there is so much syllabus to cover. His school offers Sport Science too & we weighed up the pros & cons.
DS rows & was due to represent the region this year until lockdown & has attend champs etc. The teachers were happy that his sport was a good enough level.

He chose PE as in some Uni’s it was taken as a Science.

A TES article has just appeared saying that England will not follow Scotland’s lead on CAGs.

www.tes.com/news/coronavirus-england-will-not-follow-scotlands-exam-grades-u-turn?amp&__twitter_impression=true

Thanks for new thread Orange.

Lovely words from last one Oblomov

@neutralintelligence You sum it up very well indeed. Your DS sounds very similar to mine. Worked himself so hard that even his tutor had to have a quiet word with him. He has wanted to apply to certain universities for a while and so determined to work hard to get the grades. His MH has also deteriorated during lockdown as its given him too much time to ‘ruminate’. I’ve tried to play down the whole results mechanism but it’s difficult when he keeps coming out with, ‘At least I won’t get lower than my mocks’ (he got mostly A’s and predicted much higher). I’m trying to prepare him for the likelihood of 2 grades lower across all subjects but he nearly bit my head off . I’m worried as he is unwell and having CBT at the moment and everything for next week depends on this algorithm. If he doesn’t get the grades he expected he’s just going to question everything. What’s the point of working hard? he studies for his mocks like they were the real thing.

@desertcoffeeyoga Thank you. Just hoping so much for the best, really worried about my ds’s health.

I'm here. DD has returned from a birthday party on the Common with sunburn and worse for wear. And half a bottle of Pimms has disappeared, curious 🙄

She's doesn't give the appearance of someone much bothered by what's looming. DS1, however, is fretting about Thursday. LESS THAN 48 HOURS!!!!

News from our Bristol expedition:

It's hot.