GCSE Summer 2020 Thread 10: Carry on Corona Cohort ‘The Next Step''

[OrangeCinnamon1]

Welcome all to the 10th Thread for this year's GCSE cohort - the Corona Cohort!

This is a thread for supporting all young people ( and their parents) who were examined for GCSEs 2020 regardless of the institute they attended or the grades they needed. 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 needed/deserved/wanted 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 grin ) 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 it us 'results day ' most have GCSE results and some awaiting BTEC results .

We are all ALWAYS 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 popping this here.

previous thread

Oh my goodness @Northumberlandlass that really is a scary thought ! My Dd was still 15 two months ago

Who was talking about McDonald's? My nephews ASD/Aspie has been working for them for a couple of years. Great employers , proper training, proper contracts have been so impressed.
The lifeguard training to get lifeguard roles at leisure centre is also a popular/well paid one.

My DD is 17 in a week and a half and already has her theory test booked and L plates bought 😱 it’s scary stuff!

Well done to him Oblomov. Mine has a Saturday paper round and a few hours in a takeaway every weekend. He also does quite a lot of sport.

@IHeartHarryStyles DD is also a September birthday and is working hard on the Driving theory app!

Both mine are earning good money from sports coaching - cricket + tennis. The best earners in their age group are the football refs, but DS didn’t fancy coping with all those shouty parents!

@KingscoteStaff yes DD has been buried in that as well, test booked for 2/11/20, earliest we could get it as Covid meant it took months for her provisional to arrive. She is so excited about it. My dad is a driving instructor so he has been instructed to turn up on the morning of her birthday and take her out. Bless him. Rather him than me!!

DD has a job as a waitress pre Covid but the restaurant still hasn’t reopened and we have no idea if her job will still be there when it finally does.

Dd went to school and spoke to a teacher yesterday. The teacher said she was angry about the whole process and that dd must let it her think she's not as good as she thought she was.... which is exactly what it has done It has boosted her a bit. She feels so down. Her grades are so weird - 3 grades lower in some subjects and yet higher in another.
I've told her that if she easily accepts the higher grade is wrong then to accept the lower grades are wrong too! It's always easier to accept the negative about you than the positive.

I'm feeling more and more cross about the whole thing. I just can not see how she got the lower grades in her usually best subjects. I looked back through reports over the past 2 years and she was consistently 8s and yet she got 5s. I just want term to start so we can move on.

Another sept born here and getting into the theory. I’m dreading it. She has zero patience, I have given her advanced notice that I will abandon her if she gets out of hand, car can be a lethal weapon etc.

We have same problem as you North, commitment to a job when training and other music stuff is tricky. Life guarding is great option for all. DD has nearly completed first level swim assistant which hopefully gives more flexibility/holiday work options. She does prefer working with kids pool side vs a high chair. I really do want her to fund her own social life though. I did from 14 through Saturday/holiday job but do understand things are different now.

Blobby that sounds tough and understandably unjust for her. Moving on is easier said than done when it’s not happened to all

I think the instructions from Ofqual were that schools should come up with the grade that they thought the student would achieve in the exam, using various suggested data. When the CAGs turned out to be more generous than exam results, Ofqual definitely said that was as expected. Hence the algorithm.

Afaik, Ofqual did not tell schools to try and do their own statistical moderation, using what little information had been published about the algorithm. Nevertheless for whatever reason, some schools decided they would try to moderate their CAGs before submitting them. Maybe they were trying to avoid getting moderated down, if they felt that would look bad?

I hadn't realised that ASCL had actually recommended that schools do this, as "doing the right thing". Looks like they have done their members a disservice there.

I think it's possible schools could be challenged on this if they have taken it upon themselves to do a statistical moderation before submitting CAGs instead of doing what Ofqual told them to.

Sorry to harp on. I am boring myself now and will never post about statistical moderation again! But might be useful info for anyone who suspects their school did this, resulting in lower grades for their DC.

Singing - dd's school definitely moderated. Head says that's what they were told to do. He's now rather cross! I have no idea what they were meant to have done, but it all looks so unfair now.
Ealing - thank you. She'll be OK. Her confidence is low anyway so this experience hasn't helped. Trying to dig deep to find the resilience.

DD’s school definitely moderated as well. I’m a governor so we were told this as part of the assurance that the school was submitting the most realistic grades for the pupils that would not be able to be challenged (by Ofqual) back when they thought the Moderation might be based on actual evidence.

Same here.

@singingstones

"Afaik, Ofqual did not tell schools to try and do their own statistical moderation, using what little information had been published about the algorithm. Nevertheless for whatever reason, some schools decided they would try to moderate their CAGs before submitting them. Maybe they were trying to avoid getting moderated down, if they felt that would look bad?"

One of the deputy headteachers at my school went on some official training for setting the CAGs. He came back and told us that the grades had to be put through some statistical modelling at school level. The school wasn't originally going to do this, but did an about turn after being told to at the training. We had to relook at all our CAGs at HoF level. Not sure who the training was with though.

@IHeartHarryStyles

DD’s school definitely moderated as well. I’m a governor so we were told this as part of the assurance that the school was submitting the most realistic grades for the pupils that would not be able to be challenged (by Ofqual) back when they thought the Moderation might be based on actual evidence.

Were any students actually asked to submit evidence @IHeartHarryStyles? My son had to give evidence for his English Language, apparently chosen at random, not to remark but to check the teachers marking and some of his friends had to do the same for other subjects. These were IGCSE's though but the same examination boards.

And the moderation process was also written on the declaration I had to sign as HoF to say the grades were accurate.

I think you could quite legitimately challenge the school's decision-making there as the instructions from Ofqual were clear and they haven't followed them. If they had done as asked, it's likely that some students would have been given higher grades.

(Big caveat - I am not an HT so haven't seen comms from Ofqual to schools!)

@0DimSumMum0 not as far as I am aware.

But the school had literally just down mocks prior to lockdown so I suspect they (unfortunately for DD) relied heavily on those.

Interesting @Sarahbeans so you were told to fit your grades into a certain curve - were they very specific about what statistical modelling should be applied and how to do it etc? I wouldn't have thought they would expect all schools to have a statistician to hand but maybe they do?

I am absolutely sure Our school did Ofqual job before the CAGs were sent. My DS was downgraded from his mock in one subject in a high performing grammar school. For the past year we have been told that they expect (and it is normal) for the pupils to improve by at least one grade but usually two from mocks to gcse. I also understood, perhaps incorrectly, that the schools were meant to be grading based on a best performance on the day scenario. I can’t see how the school can mark someone down on that basis unless they were doing moderation.

Also, two subjects where grades achieved in two mocks not changed a all where his friends had got lower mock results and higher gcse grade than DS.

@singingstones

The school has a computer software programme that the grades went through. But yes, the school made sure the grades were in line with historical data. I'm not sure how they did it, as it was done by SLT. But they were told to do it on the training.

One of my DDs teachers told me that the grades she has submitted to the SLT were sent back and forth a few times, so another school that obviously changed to fit the criteria.. Which would explain a couple of lower grades than expected for DD (from 2 x 7s to 6s and possibly an 8 to 7 but that isn't so obvious). Nothing to complain about officially though as still pretty close assessment really. She is happy with 3 x 6s, 3 x7s and 3 x 8s.

@Monkey2001 No idea about A levels I'm afraid...I think I will just have to be a grown up about this all and move on....