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

@Monkey2001

That is a very good letter. I always thought that subject level moderation would not work. Small cohorts are happy as they have better grades than usual, meaning there are fewer good grades for the larger centres.

I am with @FoolsAssassin - do not think CAGs are the best solution as they do result in grade inflation, but the best option from here.

I think the best solution would have been for OFQUAL to look at whole centre CAGs compared to what they expect from that centre and agree how much of a cut needed to be made across the whole cohort to meet the acceptable national grade profile. The centres could then have made the cuts from a position of knowing the students and their abilities.

Agree Monkey but as you say with where we are now best option

I think it's likely to be much worse for GCSE. They are only using 2 years of past data (3 at A Level); schools are more likely to have results that vary a lot from year to year, there is a broader range of ability (by definition, A Levels are only taken by the more able cross-section of 18 year olds); and prior attainment is based on SATS results from 5 years ago (which not everyone takes) as opposed to GCSEs 2 years ago. Not to mention that students tend to take 9-10 subjects as opposed to 3-4, so the number of individually affected students is likely to be much greater.

I want to be prepared for next week ...found this article on supporting our children from the brill YoungMinds
I know DD is anxious currently wrapped in a blanket watching Disney plus

HERE

How does prior attainment get taken into account?

Someone asked above whether any major party donors might have year 11/13 children.
Unfortunately if we look at the only comment I can see that Boris Johnson has made about the A'level results in his country: "Let's be in no doubt about it, the exam results that we've got today are robust, they're good, they're dependable for employers".
It does not mention pupils.
It mentions 'employers'. I suspect the kind of employers who have influence over the government have said it will make their lives easier if there is zero grade inflation for the year group.
In none of this is the government considering individual pupils.
No mention of fair or accurate either.

Since when was the main and primary interested party in A level results the 'employers'.
So very very wrong.

The level of cruelty to children is breathtaking

Happymummy - dd in the same boat. Is in the bottom sets but may have scraped by to get 4's. But she will be ranked very low in her high achieving academy. So will probably be one of the ones who gets the 'quota' of 2/3's.
She is dyslexic so never reads the news and doesn't watch it either. She seems oblivious to it all (thank goodness!).
But I'm shitting myself for her

Government have now agreed to pay for all appeals for A level and GCSE results.

Can I just say a big thank you to neutral. All your posts have been so well written, informative and supportive to us all.
I bloody hope yr ds gets the maths result he deserves 🤞

Nard - good. That's the least they can do

Oh good!

@pasanda - thanks.
Hope it's correct about appeals fees.
But crucially, the appeals need to be very fast, within hours or days really. For our children's GCSEs at least, results on Thursday 20 August, bank holiday on Monday, 4-5 working days, inset day, back to school.
But which school/college and which A'levels?
The pupils and schools need to know by 1 September at the latest.
That is why what Scotland did is the only acceptable solution - instant and applicable to all.
If the government follow through on the mock result promise, then that has to be the same, instant and easy to implement - simple authentication from the school of the mock result is all that there is time for now.
Just think how much time Ofqual have wasted. Ever since they received the CAGs they knew there was a problem.
Now is not the time to inflict lengthy appeals processes on 16-year-olds (or even 18-year-olds, but this is the GCSE thread after all).

@Nard75 I just saw the announcement. Haven't been able to catch up with this thread since yesterday due to work but I don't think this goes far enough. A level students have lost university offers already. I can't imagine what it will do to GCSE students who will be affected and they shouldn't be put through the appeals process at all. The schools and colleges don't have the capacity to deal with appeals and everything that the new school year will throw at them. We thought our DD would be okay with predictions of 6s to 8s, mocks of 6s to 8s but she has already said she is expecting 4s to 6s and although she's watched everything old with a levels and knows it's the algorithm she will still take it personally and there is nothing I have been able to say or do so far to change that.

*everything unfold

news.sky.com/story/climbdown-on-a-levels-as-government-agrees-to-pay-for-appeals-against-downgraded-results-12049569

Agree it does not go far enough.
Cost is factor, but not the main one. Speed and ease/simplicity seem more important to me.
A free process that takes weeks or months is of very little practical use for the start of the school or university term and will therefore not solve the problems that pupils are facing or remedy the negative effects that have been inflicted on individual pupils in a situation where there is no proof they would not have got their CAG.

Also as pointed out on this thread or another one earlier, there exam fees already paid are still largely sitting as profit with the exam board who did not have to pay for markers and other associated costs (in my day there were hundreds of students employed by each exam board all through the summer to administer the exam papers, warehousing, counting marks, checking marks, entering marks, then the same again for appeals - there has been none of this expense this year. Any fee for appeals would have been profiteering.+
This is another distraction from the main issue - how is a pupil going to get the mark they were predicted or got in a mock, and how soon can they get this mark?

Yes a big thank you to NeutralIntelligence for all your posts today.

I just keep getting crosser and crosser which isn’t very productive so have dug out DS's mock results and going to send him in with a flow chart of what to do if doesn’t get grades for his offer.

Free appeals is absolutely the least they can do , the more I read on the algorithm and the damage that has been inflicted on some of the A level students who have lost places is beyond belief.

Really hope pressure continues to mount over the weekend.

Guardian says 2 million GCSE results to be downgraded

How is grade lowering on that scale even conceivable.
Did 2 million grades really get inflated - obviously not.
Once again Ofqual knew the statistics regarding CAGs since 24 June approx.
In March, closing schools and cancelling exams was decided by the government. Boris said every child would get the grade deserved. That was when extraordinary measures and events were taking place all around us.
The fact that the results were not released until late August when people are feeling more normality returning has seriously counted against the pupils. The government would have had no issue with signing off on CAGs in March and would have totally accepted the 12-15% allegedly grade inflation. Now the government are not taking responsibility for their decisions and are failing to protect the interests of the individual GCSE and A level pupils affected.

If ds’s 4s are downgraded to 3s it will be disastrous fir him.

I don’t understand how the government can think this is going to go away. They are messing with an entire generations future.

DDs entire friendship group is getting stressed and anxious. It’s awful to see the Affect this is having on them.

Instead of secretly booking a table just in case we now need to get ready to appeal. This whole experience is so stressful for these kids ( and us). After everything else that has happened this year you would have thought they could have got this right

They're going to manage to alienate 2 million families, plus the teachers and all the staff plus all the families of the pupils who are downgraded by implementing a system which pegs a pupils' performance this year to a child they have no relation or academic link to apart from the fact they both have attended the same school .. ludricrous