Exams cancelled

[noblegiraffe]

Alternative arrangements will be made.

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

Link to possible outcome -

www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/news/pupils-to-sit-mini-summer-exams-marked-by-their-own-teachers-vml307tqg

Sorry! Just seen you have to pay to read the full article, the Daily Mail have taken the story from The Times so apologies for a fail link!

GCSE and A-level pupils will 'STILL face tests this summer'
mol.im/a/9131229

Sure

@TheSunIsStillShining

in answer to your recent long post, it’s not a matter of a tangent or taking up space more than respect and sensitivity.

This is an important issue about Year 11s and 13s. Respect that and show some sensitivity by discussing the situation they’re in and not selfishly your son, who isn’t affected, doesn’t have his exams cancelled and accordingly is in a much better situation. But that’s only my opinion and I’m not MNHQ so you’re of course free to ignore.

DD just said to me if we are doing mini assessments why can't we just do the exams in the way they had suggested before Christmas and I have to say I agree with her.

The exams were going to be adapted how is this really any different, if they don't go back to school until Easter they have a term to prepare for this?

It sounds similar to something Wales is doing with GCSEs. I imagine there’ll be external moderation - there has to be.

I wish there was some clarification regarding A level NEA’s and also what’s happening with things like drama and music performances at GCSE.

It’s just miserable and really needs clarification. As I’ve said before I’m not that worried about my year 11 but my year 13 it’s really concerning- he is still waiting for decisions on 3 Uni courses and who knows how this will affect things.

The pp with a year 10 I really wouldn’t worry they’ll be just fine

I said this on the Year 11 thread, but it’s ridiculous, that the govt said last week they needed 2 weeks to come up with a contingency plan about what to do if there were no exams.

Obviously the whole point of a contingency plan is to have it in place if the worst case happens. Now they’re coming up with a suggestion that’s akin to having the exams, after telling students there won’t be any? The lack of respect shown to them and their teachers by the government is appalling,

stormer exactly it should have been in place well before now. The ease with which the government is prepared to sacrifice these young people to their own ineptitude staggers me.

I hope with our poor mock results, that Gavin Williamson and Ofqual confirm what weighting and importance mocks in the autumn term will have on CAGs

Some comments from Gavin Williamson here: schoolsweek.co.uk/revealed-williamson-sets-out-his-plan-for-replacing-exams-this-year/

But despite the headline, nothing like a plan yet. However the grades will be submitted as late as possible so Y11 and 13 should keep working their socks off and not take their foot off the accelerator.

Thank you noble - I need to read it thoroughly as it seems there’s quite a lot to unpick there. I’d be very interested to know yours and other teachers thoughts.

Hi noblegiraffe
Thanks for the link. Can I ask you a qn pls, with your teacher hat on. If a students gets average grades in the autumn mocks but surges upwards by 2-3 grades in ongoing assessments and end of year teacher assessment, would teachers ignore the mock results - given they occurred at the start of the school year when students were playing catch up

@UncomfortableSilence

DD just said to me if we are doing mini assessments why can't we just do the exams in the way they had suggested before Christmas and I have to say I agree with her.

The exams were going to be adapted how is this really any different, if they don't go back to school until Easter they have a term to prepare for this?

That’s what my dd said too and I agree with her.

It’s more stressful not knowing and being tested all the time.

It’s also not open and fair to leave it to individual schools. They should all take the same, modified exams, with text books if relevant, and they should be externally marked.

Totally agree with your DD, Watermelon999

I think the adapted exams that were going to be set by boards in 2021, should still be set, but marked by schools. It allows some form of standardisation

I think his comments are contradictory - he is asking Ofqual "to explore the possibility of providing externally set tasks or papers, in order that teachers can draw on this resource to support their assessments of students" and then he says the consultation "should set out proposals which allow students to be assessed based on what they have learnt, rather than against content they have not had a chance to study". Surely externally set tasks will test everything and won't take into account what students have learnt and not had a chance to study?

Asking teachers to essentially mark A-levels and GCSEs is going to get pushback, I think.

We have no idea what weighting will be given to previously sat mocks. Last time schools were asked to consider a range of evidence without it being specified. Hopefully individual schools will be able to take their own circumstances into account as we are professionals!

If a student has shown sustained improvement since Christmas, especially if in some externally set task, I would expect this to overrule previously poor performance.

High grades are going to be very hard earned this year. DS1 going A levels hasn't had a full day in college since March, a months enforced SI since September and then only 40% face to face the remainder.
You have to wonder what a B grade given this year would have been under normal circumstances.
Surely they have to mark 'generously' to ensure competitive fairness against students whose results were obtained two or three years ago,

He’s also contradictory saying he doesn’t want teachers to have increased workload etc (or words to that effect) but asking teachers to mark externally set papers etc.
I’m also a bit concerned regarding grades being awarded as late as possible.

I cannot see the point of writing new exams for them to be assessed on. At what point will they be telling the kids the content of these new assessments, otherwise they may well have just sat the original papers. Dds school are just continuing with the syllabus as they were. But these decisions need to be made very soon. I just cannot understand why there wasn't a proper plan B, C and D put in place. This surely has not been a surprise to anyone.

I can't see a fair way of this cohort getting grades as they have not had fair access to education. DD is dyslexic and struggles with independent work at home. Some teachers have been amazing and are doing live teaching. Others just putting links and powerpoints on teams and expecting the kids to teach themselves

From the BBC news about the mini exams..

www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-55641364

Wonder if they will keep any of the modifications originally suggested..

www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-55160374

They should just let them sit the exams they were supposed to sit anyway. At least they would know what to expect rather than unknown exams/tests which no one has ever done before. How on earth does make that a fair judgement? It’s all concerning me that this seems to imply that the grades are going to look different? Different in what way though? Higher grades or lower grades?

Could, should, may, this all sounds ridiculously wooly. Meanwhile the kids still aren't in school and at this rate will have missed 2/3 of a year of face to face GCSE teaching. I almost feel that our kids are some form of government experiment suffering through listening to adults see how many ambiguous statements they can make and still not deliver anything concrete. It was only a few weeks ago they were adamant they would still sit exams. My DD is under the impression exams are cancelled, now maybe those exams were cancelled so we'll make up some other rubbish. I feel like giving up, how are they supposed to feel.

Hopefully they will come to a conclusion soon. This uncertainty is stressful both for the pupils and parents