Wales have cancelled next years' exams

[Springcatkin]

Will the rest of the UK follow suit?

As an ex-university admissions tutor, it will be really hard if Wales cancels and NI and England don't, but better than if England cancelled and the other two didn't (from my POV, at an English university, Scotland can go its merry way as the benchmark is different). It was hard enough comparing, er, baked apples with stewed apples this year let alone apples with oranges next year.
There will be loads of complaints about unfairness anyway, those who have done/not done exams (what are they going to do if a whole year is self-isolating at the time of the exams), those who have/have not had time off when their bubble self-isolates.

So what actually happened whey they applied to university? Did any of them get a place?
That seems like a terrible oversight.

@frace

So what actually happened whey they applied to university? Did any of them get a place? That seems like a terrible oversight.

Was that directed at me? If so, just have a look at all the news stories in August!

I think it is likely that England will follow and match this, because education has just been too patchy.

The problem is, for people like my DSS in Y13 at the moment who did very little work during lockdown and struggles working from home, the exams would have been the best option to pull something out of the bag.

His mock results were poor. He's had a few decent marks on homework assignments, but there are also some that he simply hasn't done, and he never seems to do any revision at all at home.

I feel that if he had to do exams he could have crammed and done well enough to get into the university he wants to go to, but if it's based on work he's already done he'll be screwed.

The urge to say 'I told you so' will be strong. I spent ages with his dad encouraging him to do his work and attend his online classes. He chose to sleep and play games.

I've been telling my Yr13 to work her arse off on every test and every essay, because they might be needed. We're in England. I really hope England follows suit and that we get a robust assessment framework in place, but knowing GW and our government, we will probably end up with something half-assed and disastrous announced mid-April.

I don’t know frace, I don’t know any HE kids of the relevant age. I think Lewis Goodall was doing a lot of reporting about it at the time.

@frace sorry, I missed your earlier post.

Here's what UCAS said in August

www.ucas.com/undergraduate/after-you-apply/advice-private-candidates-summer-2020

I suspect for a few of them they may have had to go onto an access course or do a different University course.
If it's an extra, and not actually required for the course itself, as it sounds like, then she could perhaps offer to write an extended essay for the university (or more likely incorporate it somehow into her personal statement) - I can't think that Politics courses will only accept Politics A level, at least, so it's not like doing 3 science A levels at home for Medicine - it's not her only A level is it?

The thing with the Welsh decision - unlike in Scotland - is that there are still going to be teacher-supervised 'tests' (exams?!) and so it is definitely worth keeping going with revision. It might well become more focused when teachers know more about those assessments.

In England and NI, there is still a strong position to stick with exams. Wales decided for 'fairness' with all the disruption and unequal access to learning. But there's no suggestion that England will. Not yet, anyway.

As one commenter said, best to keep going with studying as a no regrets way forward. If there are exams they're ready. And if they don't then being able to show progress could be important in any teacher assessed grade.

The biggest issue that we're seeing is motivation: "Why should I bother? They're probably going to cancel them anyway".

The problem will be disparity. For very tight, highly competitive university courses where admissions tutors also look at GCSEs to make decisions between candidates then how do they weight the Scottish and Welsh student’s grades against and English student from, say, Liverpool who spent much of their Y11 in periods of isolation? It would not make for a level playing field. My daughter is currently Y11. She’s bright snd academic and hasn’t suffered too much as her grammar school has been excellent during lockdown. However, lots of others her age have been at home repeatedly during this term. It would be wholly unfair for those children to have to compete with others who have missed little or no time this term.

@frace

What happened last time to homeschooled/self-taught kids regarding Centre Assessed Grades? I'm new to this area. My 18 year old daughter is studying A Level politics on her own this year (she's catching up after missing loads of school due to cystic fibrosis). Any advice most welcome. Thank you.

I assessed some HE students this summer for my subject, via the centre where they were planning to do their exams.

They most definitely DID get a grade, and it was well deserved, with a genuinely rigorous process.

I do know of someone who complained her HE child didn't get grades, but AFAIK they were not in fact entered for exams.

Note that the Welsh plan us for students to sit exams in class which will be externally marked - so GCSEs then. Just sat in spring not dimmer

summer not dimmer, stupid ipad

Nothing is ideal really, but I do think this may be the way forward.
Externally set assessments done in classrooms, but with exam like conditions. A little larger time scale to ensure social distancing, issues with self isolation periods, etc.

The reality is that for many children they have had so much disruption - be that from not being able to access remote learning between March and July, not being set enough remote home learning, more than one period of self isolation since September, etc.

The north has been far more badly affected than the south with regard to the self isolation issues too.

I suspect it isn't based purely on a set assessment in Spring. When more details are given I can imagine that there will be a range of assessments (possibly taken from the written exams they already have perhaps) spread over a longer time period, and going into the summer - they already mention about using summer teaching time when exams would have been. I suspect there will be more to come in the form of teacher assessments, but based a lot on these set smaller assessments.

With friends, we've chatted about that idea before. Set some of the known longer questions now and into spring term, one at a time, exam conditions, but based on the parts of the syllabus already done. Get them marked and moderated. Then do another one a bit later on, and so on.

I guess a bit like we used to have modules in GCSEs. At least then they'd have something to base teacher assessments on.

NellyJames I agree completely with the level playing field issue.

Some Welsh students are studying "English" exam board courses. (I assume that today's announcement will only apply to WJEC which is the Welsh exam board). So, you could have a case where a student in Cardiff still has to sit an exam in one subject, eg, OCR Economics. While English students will have to study for that and another 8 or 9.

The issue is that there's no perfect answer. But having different approaches across the whole of the UK isn't helpful for anyone.

gov.wales/wales-approach-qualifications-2021-confirmed-education-minister-kirsty-williams

@Aragog - absolutely. A mixed approach to assessment is better across the board. Exams only show a snapshot and don't take into account so many other factors.

That said, it is the system pupils currently work to and - rightly or wrongly (by which I definitely mean wrongly!) - many pupils will wait until just before the exam period to pull out the stops. So, for them, this may well feel like moving the goalposts.

This issue with England is that Gove and the current government expressly moved away from modules and coursework in favour of the linear course with the exams at the end. You can see why they'd hold on as long as they can. That's without the nightmare that is the normal distribution of grades. Is it too soon to say algorithm??

I'll be a bit pissed off as I will have spent 30k on private 6th form for dd (and that's with a bursary!). Would be typical if they cancelled exams!

I'll be a bit pissed off as I will have spent 30k on private 6th form for dd (and that's with a bursary!). Would be typical if they cancelled exams!

Unfortunately that was a choice you made.
Maybe the 30k will ensure your DD has a good set of teacher assessments on which to base a grade.

This issue with England is that Gove and the current government expressly moved away from modules and coursework in favour of the linear course with the exams at the end. You can see why they'd hold on as long as they can.

Yes - they would have to admit that maybe having everything hanging on one or two exams at the end of two years is somewhat risky. If we still had AS levels and modules for GCSE/A level we'd be in a much better position, and would have been last year too. A CAG would have been much easier to predict with some parts of the course already done, assessed, marked and moderated both internally and externally.

Unfortunately that was a choice you made. Maybe the 30k will ensure your DD has a good set of teacher assessments on which to base a grade

Yes, I was trying to be lighthearted about it.

Yes, I was trying to be lighthearted about it.

:)

We made the opposite decision and it backfired this summer.
Took her out of private school and into a state school - choice of A levels she wanted to do was he reason.
If she had stayed in the private school she'd have walked away with better grades as they were much better at applying the CAG rules than where she was.

I'm not sure what happened with the grades last year, school were very quiet about it. She's been working so hard but all focussed on grades in exams

Unfortunately I'm so cynical at the moment, but I suspect if London/ the South has had the same school disruption as the north, cancelling exams might be considered.
School disruption near us has been terrible over the past few weeks. The school my DS is at is trying to minimise disruption by having smaller bubbles, but for some local schools the full year 11 is onto its third period of isolation since September. How can they compare with schools with no disruption?

@clary

Whether home educated students got a grade or not depended entirely on the exam centre they were entered into the exam with and whether they had worked with a tutor or DLP that was approved by the exam centre.

For those who had worked independently it was extremely difficult to get a grade and many, many private candidates did not get a grade in the summer.

Some candidates were able to transfer to centres that were accepting transfers after their own exam centre ditched them saying they couldn't do CAGs for them.

Those that transferred and were not working with an approved tutor/DLP had to pay hundreds of pounds to sit invigilated mocks. But there were not enough spaces for those few exam centres to take all the displaced candidates so many home educated students did not get grades.

Everyone is hoping that lessons will have been learned from this year and that processes will be put in place for private candidates.

On the Welsh situation, I really don't get what is fairer about candidates having to sit an externally set exam in the spring rather than and externally set exam in the summer. Plus, nobody knows the format so everyone has to get used to a totally different system. Crazy. I so hope England doesn't follow.

@idril, indeed, I wasn't trying to say that some (many?) HE students didn't get grades. But certainly some (many?) did.

The work I did was as a qualified assessor approved by the exam centre, and the students I worked with were not students I had tutored. There was a process with interview, marking of completed work and an invigilated mock, and AFAIK it was available to all students at the centre.

Yes, parents had to pay, but for four hours (or more in the case of A level tbh) of my experienced and qualified time it was £100 which I thought was reasonable. Obviously it's more than the £0 paid directly by parents of DC in school, but then there is a cost to HE.

@clary Yes, the process was available to all students at that centre but there are thousands of home educated students and many of them did not get grades. It was simply not possible for them all to transfer to the few exam centres that offered this service.