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

Grade inflation is actually not really an issue for the following years of pupils who take the exam. Their exam moderation can be based on 2020 results and then it is all fair.
12% grade inflation from 2020 onwards has been given undue significance in a year of mass tragedy and a change to normality in every single area of life.

I will report back @FoolsAssassin & I have used that very word many times over the last few days!

New thread is Here

Btw I am not fussy about who starts threads etc just worried a new one won't get made because I did not notice thread numbers AGAIN

@Nard75 algorithm based on rank order
At the moment

Exactly @naturalintelligence. My DD has lost 6 months of learning, she needs all the breaks she can get!

@EwwSprouts - you are right about the GCSEs not being the final school qualification - so actually it is slightly different for GCSEs than A levels.

For GCSEs no-one is going to get to university or start a career without being bright or hard-working enough because they still have another round of education and qualifications to take: A levels, BTecs, apprenticeships etc.
By lowering their CAGs though, many many pupils (hundreds of thousands) may be unfairly prevented from going to university or starting their chosen career simply because they cannot move on to the correct A levels or BTecs etc. Their life chances will be hindered forever.

Nard at the moment is is the algorithm. So their rank order, run through the algorithm against school’s previous performance. This will be allegedly for 97% of GCSE grades.

Theoretically they can appeal but no one knows what this will mean as guidelines were issued but quickly withdrawn.

Just woken up and can’t believe they’ve now ‘pulled’ the advice on appeals. What next?

[quote Heifer]@20Newnames Here is the link to find out your schools past GCSE results.

www.compare-school-performance.service.gov.uk/download-data

Following these instructions and it should work - I'm not being patronising I've typed them clearly as I kept getting it wrong myself when other people said vaguely what to do :-)

Select academic year
Continue
All of England (MUST DO THIS FOR IT TO WORK, NOT LOCAL AUTHORITY)
Continue
click on Key Stage 4 qualification and subject data
Continue
Click on file - it's big
Open file
It's slow
Click on Institution Results TAB
Filter on School Name
All GCSE results are there - unless less than 5 then not shown..

Good luck[/quote]
Thank you so much for this @Heifer. I will wait until I am on my PC later to try it but I really appreciate the help.

And thanks for the not patronising instructions, I have tried similar before and not got there so much appreciated

I am getting angrier and angrier about this. It is a complete shambles. For some reason I really trusted that the government would do their best for our kids within this whole crisis but no. I should have known better. It actually reminds me a little of the PIP and ESA processes in that they also are based around callous algorithms that end up penalising individuals - and in those cases the DWP don't listen to the experts, ie the actual doctors who know the patients, either - they just fill in their forms with this great rigidity which does not allow for any nuance, and thus sick people are denied benefits. It reminds me of that because yet again an algorithm is here employed to make the decisions which will ha e a significant impact on pupils and possibly wreck their chances if appeals are as shambolic as the rest of it.

I underestimated the pure spite and mean-spiritedness of those who would design a system that slavishly protects the national picture at the expense of the individual children concerned.

This!

shiny new thread here

@neutralintelligence I don't think future years should be moderated against any grade inflation this year. A small part may be due to teacher optimism but mainly it will be because nobody had a bad day eg hayfever, exam melt down etc. In reality if 2021 GCSE exam grades are moderated against 2019 the grade boundaries are likely to be significantly lowered given teaching time missed. It's either make 2020 an exception or create a chasm pre2020 and post2020 which affects many more in the jobs market cf essential maths & English grade.

Moved last post to new thread.

@EwwSprouts - I agree. May now go and repeat the point on the new thread so that the point does not get lost.

You beat me to it!

@Heifer

Thanks for putting that info up.

Managed to download and calculate the results for my daughter's school. When I asked her where she thought she came in her class, and thankfully her estimation of where she is would keep her more or less in line with her predicted grades. Slightly less - more 6s than 7s, but she's happy with that.

So thank you. I know it's not reliable but it has helped to calm one teenage girl who had been catastrophising what was going to happen next week. It's going to be a long time to Thursday!

@Sarahbeans - that is why I did it myself, to calm down DD - which it did - but then I realised I had used the last 3 years data and it should be 2 for GCSE and it tells a different story. I think she might miss out on quite a few grades :-( I havent told her yet.. As her school is going to email out results, followed by CAGS and Mock results I'm hoping that will appease her somewhere. I feel if she believes that it was seen that she deserves the higher grade by the school it will help. Maybe it will all be ok anyway..... Fingers crossed

Glad I could help someone.

Apart from music I have no way of knowing ds’s ranking for most of his subjects.

My DD knew most of hers (execept History as 3 classes but not set so no idea how many other were on the same level.

You shouldn't know the ranking or the CAG. Schools were not allowed to share those until results day.

I don't know the CAGs but DD has a good idea of where she is likely to be in the ranking. It's quite a small school and most classes are set. Won't be exact obviously but it was a good starting point to try to ease her worries.

@OrangeCinnamon1

shiny new thread here

New thread here :)

Does this mean that an underachieving student may get better results if they go to an above average school?

Yes.