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

Feeling very twitchy now as I have remembered that although DS's school did some "valid" mocks, English was taken in the classroom and that's our worrisome subject.

Watching Gavin in BBC news now. He is full of shit. This mock triple lock thing is bollocks. It won’t happen.

He is very jittery isn't he?

I believe he has exam age children.

There is a post on the HE board from the spikes of a teacher. Apparently grades are 40% down across the school and in thei subject those at the bottom of the ranking have been downgraded by 2 grades!!! So much for the promise of changes of only 1 grade.

Sorry souse now spikes

'most by only one grade' is what Nick Gibb said. Which makes me really cross anyway. One grade is a big deal at A Level!

@Piggywaspushed My DS is exactly the same but I have started panicking now with everything that is going on. Let’s hope they are right to be optimistic. My niece is getting A level results today so good luck to everyone else who is waiting for results today 🤞

I tweeted Naga & asked if she could ask GW to acknowledge BoJo’s comment earlier this year that no student would be disadvantaged was a crock of shit...... she didn’t ask 🤣

www.theguardian.com/education/2020/aug/12/shock-and-despair-as-headteachers-in-england-get-first-sight-of-downgraded-a-levels?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

It’s dire! I don’t think I can wait another week for ours.

I want a journalist to ask about why NEAs aren't to be included in any evidence.

What was the point of submitting grades and rank order if like A levels 40% are down. Exams board should’ve just randomly given out results to students which is what it looks like is happening. My DS doesn’t go in for his GCSE results until 1000 so we will have to wait even longer.

Am I right to get the impression that Ofqual do not agree with the steps the government are trying to take to ensure pupils don't get downgraded too much or too many of them as a result of the moderation?
Ofqual seem to be pushing back against the government's attempts to use mock results and make appeals hard for schools and potentially risky too.

Good luck to all those whose DC are getting A Level results today! Hope they get the results they are hoping for.

@neutralintelligence no I don’t think you are wrong at all. GW said that OFQUAL had been consulted prior to his announcement on Tuesday night but it sure doesn’t come across that way!!
I think this is red herring to deflect the backlash and that students are not going to have much in the way of success with appeals. I’m also concerned that schools won’t want to appeal for a student if they think it risks changes in grades to others. OFQUAL have indicated that it might.

I agree with that Cherry

How bizarre that Ofqual hold all the cards and are so very against anyone potentially getting just one grader higher than they might, but perfectly OK with many getting one grade lower than they might.
So they have more power than teachers, schools, exam boards and the government. And have started to play nasty by threatening that appeals might be detrimental.

Feeling sick with anxiety here with every news report I hear or read - it just feels like a total mess. Hoping that it’s all been spelled out as doom and gloom by the media but that it won’t be as bad as predicted but that’s wishful thinking, I know!

Sending huge good luck vibes to everyone getting their A levels today.

Early days yet, more to play out I think, let’s see where things are next Thursday. Just feel so much for A level people. Good to see there are some happy people so far.

Morning all, good luck to any DC getting A level results today.

One more week of madness to go for us!

Ofqual have now said they will be doing the press briefing GW has been emphatic on all news channels that there will be no U turn as in Scotland.

Have they said what time the press conference is?

@neutralintelligence we encountered the conflict of interests/inflexibility last year. DS appealed A level Chemistry after reviewing papers and managed to get an upgrade, but there was one question where his answer was correct (chemistry) but not in the mark scheme so they refused to give him the mark because it would undermine the mark scheme. In a normal year the exam boards are responsible for reviewing whether marks are reasonable, but it is not in their interests for grades to go up as it looks bad on their stats and they have to refund schools for fees paid.

Meant to say that this year it is even worse as OFQUAL just had too much power to over-ride what the professionals, who know the ability of the candidates, believed the grades should be.

@Monkey2001 - that is bad.
I just think that the statisticians at Ofqual are happy with the theory and standing by it, but the reality on the news today is that it just hasn't worked fairly or accurately on grades that were not achieved in exams or NEAs. The standard exam moderation does not seem to be working in this very different situation.
Just heard a teacher on LBC on the brink of tears saying it was not true about just one grade lower than expected. She had pupils 4 grades below expected. Also since when did one grade below what the pupil deserved become acceptable?

50% of my (small) A Level class had grades reduced by one. Bit deflated because it's small class how have been overwhelmingly judged by a much larger and weaker 2017 cohort's results.
But none down by 2.
In lots of subjects, lots of students went down by 2, including one from an A to a C in an A Level class of 5.

So, feeling a bit deflated.

But the national stats don't look bad at all so that's confusing. Things about types of schools, and types of students may begin to come out, I think.