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

Thank you for the new thread OrangeCinnamon1

I'm feeling optimistic today and took DS to buy the new shoes he'll need if he gets into 6th form (his feet have grown since March).

Sarah was that the academy that made the news?

I commented somewhere else they weren't lying about the quick turn around - 3 months apparently

Perfect intro Orange. Thank you for new thread

Yes schools can’t tell parents and pupils what is happening as they haven’t been told yet. Hopefully something will be confirmed later this afternoon. Our exams staff will not be happy if they have to come in again next week to issue the official results.

Thanks for the new thread Orange. Expecting a letter from Head today about tomorrow- results by email. DC4 got downgraded in Ad Maths and OCR have said CAG will replace it, but have heard nothing official yet. But anything can happen in 24 hours!

@Decorhate

Yes schools can’t tell parents and pupils what is happening as they haven’t been told yet. Hopefully something will be confirmed later this afternoon. Our exams staff will not be happy if they have to come in again next week to issue the official results.

I don't think enough people realise teachers have worked Easter, BH, May half term, had to do all this CAG stuff and have had just as much stress and extra hours through this as well.

I don't think it's just students MH we should be watching out for tbh.

We received this from DD’s HT.

We have an emergency governors meeting tonight. Normally they’re fairly dry. I’m looking forward to the expletives in this one!!

I agree @itsgettingweird

DS's school have also said they are getting CAGs on Thursday, no mention of GAVs.

You may recall that ages ago they said there would be no league tables this year and I thought that was because it would not be fair to schools to judge them on abstract results. Now I am thinking that I would like to see tables comparing every school to their results for last year to identify the cheats. One local school has posted a 20% improvement on last year for top grades in the A level results last week, that will be even higher once the downgraded ones go up.

It feels like a poker game and we are now all hoping our schools went in with the right level of optimism compared to everyone else.

@itsgettingweird Most exams staff are not teachers & don’t get paid for all the school holidays - it’s usually term time plus however many weeks they actually need to be in. So it’s either they do extra days unpaid or schools have to find the funds to pay them overtime.

HPFA - no my town doesn't begin with an O!

You can understand the animosity some people are displaying towards Y11 and Y13s with that type of inflation Monkey; there are rogue gamers in walks of life.

We have public website access to grades for both as far back as 2014 by numbers sat, subject and grade achieved, as I’m sure a lot of schools will have. It won’t stop the finger pointing ‘but your results aren’t real’ brigade, but for those parents who want to do the analysis, it’s there at least.

It is what it is to coin the cliche. And I hope come Sept all impacted year groups (eg 10 and 12 for starters) can get the support needed to recover lost teaching time, as well as all the other challenges the DoE should have been focusing on caused by this year’s disruption. Which hasn’t even gone away yet but GAV did distract us from that for a short while!

Where can I find results by breakdown for ds school?

If any animosity should be displayed it should be towards the government. Year 13 and 11 have had no control over what would happen to their exam results like they would’ve had in a normal year. They have lost so much already and have had to go through this emotional rollercoaster just to get them the results they deserve. In my opinion they have come out of this as strong resilient young people who deserve nothing but praise.

100% agree Nard

Not sure if this shows all the data Itsgetringweird as I don’t use it but worth a go...

www.gov.uk/school-performance-tables

Signing in again, thank you to all our are posting such useful insights, these threads have been great.

Itsgettingweird if you go back I think 2 threads , fairly close to the end , Heifer posted some fail proof instructions and I finally found them for DS’s school. So sorry in advance if that’s not the right thread, it’s been so fast moving.

I hope DS’s school has done them in line with last year at least as they are on a definite upwards trend with new Head and this year is a strong cohort.

@Nard75

If any animosity should be displayed it should be towards the government. Year 13 and 11 have had no control over what would happen to their exam results like they would’ve had in a normal year. They have lost so much already and have had to go through this emotional rollercoaster just to get them the results they deserve. In my opinion they have come out of this as strong resilient young people who deserve nothing but praise.

Absolutely!

@FoolsAssassin

Itsgettingweird if you go back I think 2 threads , fairly close to the end , Heifer posted some fail proof instructions and I finally found them for DS’s school. So sorry in advance if that’s not the right thread, it’s been so fast moving.

I hope DS’s school has done them in line with last year at least as they are on a definite upwards trend with new Head and this year is a strong cohort.

Yes it was posted on Sunday in the last thread

@blobbyface

HPFA - no my town doesn't begin with an O!

There must be more than one Inadequate school that seems to have really benefited then.

Thanks all. Followed the link. Ds school been getting lower and lower 4 and above in maths and English since he started (but still above NA)

He'll probably benefit from Cags not Gavs!

Someone in a facebook GCSE group has phone Ofqual. You can appeal down to technical fault or bias but neither will result in a grade change so basically they have removed the right to appeal. If you don’t like your CAG tough!

We've had an email from DD's school to explain that they will be emailing CAGs on Thursday morning. If they've missed the requirements for the subject(s) they want to do, there's the option of coming in for an appointment to discuss options.

So the valid mock thing is out again?