GCSE Summer 2020 Thread 9 : Carry on Corona Cohort ‘Let’s Ofqual the whole thing off'

[OrangeCinnamon1]

Welcome all to the 9th Thread for this year's GCSE cohort - the Corona Cohort!

This is a thread for supporting all young people ( and their parents) taking GCSEs regardless of the institute they attend or the grades they need. It is respectfully requested that we are all supportive and helpful to each other.

If you want to start a debate e.g state vs private - please do not within this thread.

Similarly it should be recognised that the grades our children need/deserve/want will vary across the board- we wish to celebrate and comiserate with all. One same grade outcome can simultaneously cause joy and despair for different posters and their families. Please be sensitive when responding to threads about grade outcomes.

Some of us have been here since I started first thread back in yr10, 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 on the Secondary Education Board (at least until Mumsnet HQ chuck us out ) as from now on our DS/DD may go down various paths such employment, apprenticeships, higher ed etc so we decided not to be exclusionary.

Any new threads should have 'GCSE Summer 2020 Thread # : Carry on Corona Cohort' in title just to make it easier to find. There is no preciousness about who starts new threads!

At this precise moment in time we are still awaiting GCSE results . At first these were to be that seem to have been produced by an algorithm that also takes very little account of Teacher Centre Assessed Grades. There is an appeal process but it was changed to include mock results and coursework, then taken down again for review. Now it has been decided that the higher of Centre Assessed Grades and Calculated Grades will be awarded in two parts??!?!

We are all STILL trying to protect our young people's mental health, which the government claims is their priority...when they talk about wanting students back in schools/college in September...

First Thread

Previous thread

Thanks for all that info monkey.

If she ever speaks to me again, I'll tell her mum!

I've just told dd about those foundation Science grades being algorithmed up above a grade 5 - she's now hopeful of walking off with a 6 or 7 despite being predicted 4 or 5

Good luck with that, dd

@Piggywaspushed Goodluck for tomorrow. Whatever happens you will know in your heart of hearts that you tried your best with the DD, teaching and advising her in how to get the best possible educational outcome in herweak subject Learning is a two way thing. You can lead a horse to the water......and that. That’s all you can do.

@Piggywaspushed

I love Sam Freedman. Wish he was my HT!

Intelligence is so sexy!

Being attracted to inteeligence used to be called being a "sapiosexual" but apparently that's now been deemed "ableist"

I'd normally think twice about posting rumours but we all know he's well connected.

[quote Shimy]@Baileyscoffeeandcampfires Accountancy and engineering both require A’level Maths. She could still get into I.T though, what about something like this :
ITMB[/quote]
Thanks

Didn't realise accounting wanted a level maths , thought accounting a level would be enough . She would probably look for a degree apprenticeship anyway assuming they are slightly less rare than rocking horse poo in 2 years time
I did Acca accountancy with 2 rubbish a levels via working for peanuts at a chartered accountants but that was 25 years ago

Oh for Goodness' sake. Friday is Bin Day. Friday has been Bin Day for years.

I KNOW tomorrow is Thursday. It's quite a Big Day.

So why on earth did I put the bin out an hour ago??

Piggy It's your subconscious wanting tomorrow over and done with?

@RedskyAtnight your poor DS, and his friend . That's so hard.

@Piggywaspushed thinking of you and all teachers tomorrow, the pressure and stress on you all must be horrendous and I can only imagine how pushy some parents can be!

@HPFA that is bonkers re the foundation papers and 6s! But I'm at the point where nothing will surprise me...

We've got instructions from school about potential appeals process, it makes it very clear that 'not agreeing with the CAG' will not be something you can appeal. They are also being quite clever and saying that only students can contact school to discuss grades I wonder how many parents will steamroll through and ignore that one!!

I've just written out my own GCSE predictions for DS, based on what he has been tracking grades wise...trying to be conservative ie assuming a 6 where he achieved a 7 in mocks for example in the hope that I'll get a pleasant surprise rather than a disappointment. Haven't shown DS though. He seems blithe about the whole thing. I'm already on the wine

just de lurking to say good luck to all tomorrow.
Having survived Dd2 A level results last Thursday, then Monday's announcement, then DD2 re-released (and thankfully improved) A level results on Tuesday, I am now anxiously awaiting dd3 GCSE results tomorrow.
Will be very glad when August is over!!

@Piggywaspushed

Oh for Goodness' sake. Friday is Bin Day. Friday has been Bin Day for years.

I KNOW tomorrow is Thursday. It's quite a Big Day.

So why on earth did I put the bin out an hour ago??

🤣🤣

@mosscarpet

just de lurking to say good luck to all tomorrow. Having survived Dd2 A level results last Thursday, then Monday's announcement, then DD2 re-released (and thankfully improved) A level results on Tuesday, I am now anxiously awaiting dd3 GCSE results tomorrow. Will be very glad when August is over!!

I think you should join flying

A Headteacher reports a Grade 1 upgraded to an 8. Better not tell our kids and get their hopes up LOL. Surely it's an admin error?

twitter.com/MrJonnyMitchell/status/1296132011090993164

Ooh tomorrow is going to be strained. DD has returned from work today involving school parents. Asked me if she was being over sensitive on this comment when leaving: ‘good luck with your results tomorrow; hope your teachers enjoyed their bottles of Prosecco from your mum’

I told her yes she was, and she’ll have to get used to it. I’ve never been that generous 🙄

Thick coats required...

I can’t get over the reports of students taking foundation papers getting higher than a 5!

I don't get it @ealingwestmum
Are they trying to say you have bribed the teachers with Prosecco? 🤪

I really do feel for all teachers! Teflon jackets tomorrow.

@Northumberlandlass I now have high hopes for DS's nearly all foundation level German 😂
He'll probably end up doing better in that than in the courses he's doing for A level

A grade 1 to a grade 8?! That’s ridiculous. It’s gone from one extreme to another. In all seriousness, do you think employers will actually trust these grades in the future? I suppose it’s probably going to be self evident from the results of further study whether they were accurate grades - but even so...

😂 @singingstones

I have no idea what DS thinks he’s getting! But he seems very chilled.

The only thing chilled about me is the wine!

I'd like to point out at this time that I only take gin shaped bribes.
One of my year 11 offered me an open bag of haribo for a good mark in an assessment in the week we closed. Sadly as he hadn't answered the question set, that was never going to help.

Actually students getting 6 when entered for foundation strikes me as one of the less odd things the algorithm has done.

If you've got a 5/6 borderline student they have to decide whether to go in for foundation or higher. DS was one such and in the end he plumped for foundation and the chance to "bank" a 5, versus the possibility he'd fail dismally on the higher paper and get no grade. If no one tells the algorithm that foundation and higher papers exist it's actually quite reasonable that it should bump a student like DS up to a 6 (similar to any other other grade border). And, after all, 20th March was still before the final data for entry changes, so it's not inconceivable there might have been some last minute tier changes.

Wow, I was expecting to see a fair bit of bonus grade inflation, but looks like it might be even bigger than I thought. When we know how much additional grade inflation there is, it will be possible to work out how many of the unchanged grades would have gone down as we know they were planning to limit grade inflation to 2%.

Surely half of OFQUAL should be sacked for not realising this was a problem! No wonder their Board persuaded Gav to use CAGs and hide the GAVs, although can't see why they decided to keep the upgrades for GCSEs.

Dennis Sherwood (who wrote the HEPi blog - www.hepi.ac.uk/2020/08/18/cags-rule-ok/) thinks that the reason Gav has not resigned is that they are expecting problems when schools go back so he will be the fall guy for that.

There are sometimes a handful of changes (moving both ways) between foundation and higher...I know this from my invigilating work where we have to double triple check lists to ensure we’ve allocated the right paper to a desk when there has been a change. So yes that is definitely more logical than the grade 1 student to a grade 8!!

@Northumberlandlass me too re the wine! I’m hoping chilled wine will chill me out but alas not so far.

Angela Griffin (actress who doesn't age) has a Dd picking up her GCSE grades tomorrow...I was gonna tell her to pop over here for and then realised it would be a bit outing

Thank you to all the teachers for your calm advice , I really hope you don't get any flak tomorrow

Singingstones I love Prosecco but insulted at such a cheap bribe insinuation. Now gin is slightly higher on the value chain MrsHamlet 😂