Exams cancelled

[noblegiraffe]

Alternative arrangements will be made.

How stressful to announce that with no details about what will happen.

NotDonna
Vigilance spyware is known as online proctoring, where invigilators can guess my face and eye movements if candidates are cheating off screen, or correctly focussing on the screen itself. It’s become quite an industry

Wow portico that’s so clever. I’m guessing it’s expensive? Or could it be an option for schools to assess their kids remotely on the proviso their kids have tablets etc? For CAGs? Or are there issues I’m not thinking of?

@grauduroi what happens in normally; pre-covid for example? Honest question as I’m curious now you’ve raised it. I think if a child has MH issues in normal times they either take fewer exams or have to suck it up. I don’t think any allowances are made. Certainly a friend’s child with Anorexia who had spent months in hospital took a reduced number (4 instead of 11). Zero allowances. Super bright girl who would have got all As (when they were letters not numbers). No idea how that would have worked if she’d been doing A levels.

@ineedaholidaynow

Universities did exams online didn't they, so did they use something like that?

University exams are different though. It's much easier to make them open book, for a start - you just have to adjust the questions. My DD did her end of year exams from home and it worked fine, but they weren't exams that were about regurgitating facts or writing essays in a timed environment. It's a completely different way of assessing, and would require a change in how the curriculum is taught, how students are taught to handle assessment, and how the government actually views education.

So a huge improvement all round pointythings. The current system is dire and has been for decades.

NotDonna I'd like to see that change, but we have a government that doesn't trust schools or teachers. Since 2010 we have had a DfE which has insisted on going back to the 1950s and turning its back on more modern ways of managing learning. That isn't going to change until we get rid of the Tories and even then you have to ask - do we really want another major shakeup of the education system? But it's badly needed.

notdonna I'm not sure how what would have been done normally but presume some assistance/counselling was offered if you wanted it.

Our school had noticed those pupils whose attainment/egagement dropped off and was offering help to get them back on track before lockdown.

This was going to continue until the exams. Probably naively, but I would've assumed most schools would be tracking this.info too

@NotDonna

Wow portico that’s so clever. I’m guessing it’s expensive? Or could it be an option for schools to assess their kids remotely on the proviso their kids have tablets etc? For CAGs? Or are there issues I’m not thinking of?

Some exam boards already have them built into their systems. Pearsons is one of them for sure. EdX also uses it.

Proctoring can be done in various ways, but the idea is that a software records audio/video and keystrokes together with timestamps.
Then overlays this info with known patterns of cheating.

Personally -atm- I don't like the solutions. I've worked on some concepts. If there is machine learning built in, then it -in time- will learn good behavior. But because of the time pressure to roll these out the companies involved mostly undertrain and this leaves the first few cohorts at a disadvantage. When I raised this the companies put it down as an acceptable risk. :( Money is more important. as always.

What would make me confident in any solution this year would be some safeguards:

1. clear appeal process where software is really evaluated by a human
2. random sampling of results by humans
3. very strict and frequent training cycles

2 and 3 will never be made public. But if 1. is implemented I'd say it's a good solution.

There is also a potential to do manual procoting - literally 1 person overseeing x students through cam.

My other concern has nothing to do with technology, but business models. Exam boards are for profit companies (even if they have the exam boards as non-profit arms). Meaning that they will promise the moon and starts but will cut corners, because the most important thing is to keep their jobs at mid-level, appease stakeholders higher up. Rarely anyone cares about the pupils.

Have forgotten who posted on this point ,but I am also keen to know what CIE and Edexcel decide about IGCSEs, international A levels and PreU. Given they haven’t declared yet suggests they might be trying to go ahead with exams - can’t imagine how that could work. Yet more uncertainty.

To add to the mess, it looks like IGCSEs are going ahead at the moment which means more uncertainty for those schools/Year 11s that have a mixture of GCSEs and IGCSEs.

Are you sure @SurreyGuru as DDs school told they weren’t going ahead either. They’ve a couple of subjects that are igcse.

It’s completely mad but the 4 schools in our area have all written to pupils saying that at the moment that’s the position. They are waiting further clarification but are proceeding on the basis of exams.

For those of you with a child in year 13 with mocks due after feb half term..... are they still planning to go ahead?

My DD is doing all IGCSEs apart from 1. I’ve heard that Ed excel, aqa ans cambridge are at them
Moment planning to go ahead and because they are not regulated by DfE or Ofqual they can go ahead even when GCSEs don’t. I just don’t see how on earth they can. The uncertainty is just too awful.. does anyone know anything more? Can schools decide not to go ahead and do Teqchwr assessed or do they have to sit them if they are happening ..
It’s just mad...

@sleepwouldbenice - yes DD's 'A' level mocks going ahead after Feb half term

@sleepwouldbenice

For those of you with a child in year 13 with mocks due after feb half term..... are they still planning to go ahead?

Year 13 mocks were originally scheduled for this week. After schools closed but Pre Gav’s announcement they were moved to after half term.

After Gavs announcement we have been told tgat teachers will continue teaching the course and that they will plan assessments and advise students when they have the details on when and what will be needed to be covered.

Same goes for year 11’s except they had mocks pre Christmas.

Year 11 & 13 have an assembly with the head in the morning where she will talk further to them.

My year 11 is doing the English Speaking thing tomorrow via Google Meet.

Essentially they are carrying on with everything until they are told to the contrary.

I trust the school totally they are fantastic although as a Grammar school (not having to teach a range of abilities) they possibly have less challenges then a comprehensive.

The only thing slightly unknown is music performances which were scheduled to happen soon but peripatetic music lessons are back online.

@sleepwouldbenice my yr13 was due mocks end Jan and my yr11 due this week. They’ve not had any others. School has postponed until (at least) after Feb half term when Gav & Ofqual have decided what to do. The head emphasised how it makes more sense to use these weeks of valuable teaching time to cover content rather than do assessments that may not be valid & useful. Words to that effect. Makes sense.

iGCSEs were cancelled last year. At least in the U.K. I’ve no idea about overseas, so surely same applies. Content has been missed.

I think igcse’s were cancelled all over world last year and this year they saying still going ahead- I am baffled that they think kids who have missed this much content can go ahead..

My year 13 has been told mocks are still happening, but when they go back. Whenever that might be. They were planned originally for straight after half term so we'll see when they end up back at school...

They have been having regular testing every 2 weeks in each subject so they will have a good idea on the trajectory of pupils. Grammar schools with no isolations and good online learning. I don’t know how they make it fair for those like my DD who would have been okay taking exams, and those who have missed so much through no fault of their own. Conversely, what do they do about the kids who made no effort in the first closure, but may have flourished by exam day.

@nancypineapple

So do we think that schools will allocate grades according to what historically their results are? DS goes to a good state comp and is predicted 2A*1A on his UCAS form. He needs to attain these grades if he stands a chance of getting into any of his 4 main courses. Do we think teachers will list students from first to last grade wise? This will certainly not help those that cram for exams or those who are suddenly maturing after GCSE's and excelling in their chosen 3 or 4 subjects. Lots of things to skew results, past history in GCSE's, past historical results for the school/college. Just a minefield.

When I asked my school why my child was not given his ucas grades (ACC) for his CAGs we were told that ucas grades are not realistic and are aspirational. My sons actual CAGs were CDD. Yet I know some schools have admitted they matched ucas grades to CAGs.

As soon as we go back into school properly we will be assessing the kids to see where they are because we need valid , up to date, data. Because we need that data to be robust we will be giving them proper papers in exam conditions. If we can, we will do at least one maybe two more exams by the summer, to try and gather as much valid info about the pupils - so we can standby our grades .

Essentially they have cancelled exams so now we have to give the kids .... exams. The difference being the exams will be different from school to school and internal marked without moderation.

Last time all the state schools I know put their data through their best guess of what the algorithm would be and then went back to teachers and asked them to moderate the grading to stay within the broad pattern of past results. If there is no threat of checks and balances then there is the worry that if you don’t give a child the most optimistic grade possible you risk disadvantaging them compared to other schools who are happier to take advantage of the situation .

Every time I think about it I feel so tense . I’m trying to focus on each week and just get through the syllabus and worry about it nearer the time.

I think you express the situation well @Cathpot

@2021vision

Can someone explain what they mean by 'how can they do CAGs as they won't have the data?'

Surely 'A' level students must have been doing some work and if they havent then:

• why havent the schools been all over them?
• how have the schools predicted grades for UCAS if they don't have any data?
• if students just stopped working in March then they were never going to catchup anyway were they?
• perhaps those students who havent done any work should re-think uni because if they can't do a bit of independent study then isn't uni going to be too much?

There was always a very strong chance that the exams wouldn't go ahead. Why havent schools been all over this to ensure they do have the data?

Last year's Y12s were set work online last summer and had live lessons- we also did mock exams once they were back in school in the summer, but not all of them came back in, and to be honest their results didn't really reflect their ability after time away from the school environment. They missed an end of topic assessment at the start of lockdown with both teachers.

I don't teach that class this year, but I know they have been hampered by individuals self isolating. They've done an end of topic assessment, and a paper 1 mock at different times (which is in itself an issue), but they hadn't covered much/all of the paper 2 content by Christmas, so no mocks on that).

Last year, their teacher would have had a full set of Y12 results, Y12 mocks, multiple Y13 assessments and a Y13 full mock to help produce grades.

So there is some evidence, but much less. It's impossible to assess what hasn't been taught yet.

Other schools will have had more to deal with in terms of self isolation and isolating teachers, too.

The problem is not that there is no data, but that the data we do have is patchy and there's variation between students in terms of the data we do have.