Exams cancelled

[noblegiraffe]

Alternative arrangements will be made.

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

It can't be made fair. Exams are never "fair" for everyone. Every year, children have different experiences of education, for all sorts of reasons, which affect their results. The difference now is the weight of numbers of those disadvantaged. It's taken the problem and ripped it wide open. It's also shown, I think, that there no simple, "fair" alternative to exams either. I'd vote for exams too, actually.

My biggest concern at the moment is vocational subjects, which seems to be carrying on with the normal arrangements. I keep getting emails from external verifiers about assessment plans and sampling, and I wonder how they think we're managing to keep up with practical subjects at the moment.

Do practical subjects have standards madonna? More skills based and thus permitting judgments regarding grade levels? As opposed to nobles comments regarding maths.

It's the actual doing the practical stuff that's the problem!

Apologies madonna I missed your point. Without practical rooms (DT, labs, etc) students can’t practice nor prove their skills. Got you!

I moderated controlled assessment and coursework. There was not much "controlled" about a lot of them.

Cross post. Oh it’s all such a bloody nightmare!!

My DS was in school full time from September to December with no isolations luckily. However despite his best efforts (he worked solidly throughout the first lockdown and still working hard now) he is in no way achieving what he would have been capable of had this have not happened. He is very stressed and is struggling to concentrate. Whilst I appreciate that obviously the kids that have had to have repeated isolations are at a disadvantage they also need to realise the impact this has had all on all students. Did they not at one point suggest actual exams in English, maths and science and then teacher assessed for the other subjects? Would that not be a fairer way to do it?

English CAs were notorious in one school I worked in. And the Science ones were unbelievably easy to drill for, once you'd seen a couple of mark schemes.

they also need to realise the impact this has had all on all students

I agree that it has been a pretty terrible time regardless of whether they've been in or out (or in and out). Maintaining the grade distribution with previous years would be the best way to account for that. I know that it would 'advantage' those who have had a more stable time than other students, but then that is always the case.

@TheFallenMadonna I know it. My dd is dyslexic even with extra time I would say exams arent fair to her.

So obviously she has chosen more practical options where possible. Due to lockdowns, isolation, cleaning Rita's etc she has cooked two dishes in school in food tech since March 2020

A couple of interesting discussions of the Ofqual proposals on twitter

twitter.com/mrmountstevens/status/1350357628585697280?s=21

twitter.com/jemmaths/status/1350405040545165313?s=21

Not much support for the proposals from teachers that I can see.

@noblegiraffe

But given you don’t believe teacher assessments would work either what would work in your opinion?

I don't think there's any right or fair answer, it's a mess.

But my preference for maths would be for the kids to sit the exams as normal with grade boundaries adjusted as they normally are to ensure the usual distribution of grades. In order to compensate in a small way for missed teaching, I would want the special consideration process to be used to give a percentage boost to students who have had to isolate since September, depending on how many weeks missed.

Anything before September I think is just too difficult to mitigate.

I completely agree.

My dd has had to isolate for 2 weeks in the autumn term though abs I honestly don’t think this has disadvantaged her. (It probably would have if we’d had multiple isolations)

She was very self motivated though and made sure she contacted friends and the teachers to keep up with what had been covered and taught it herself at home- emailing teachers if she was stuck. I didn’t get involved at all.

I think the government have underestimated how driven a lot of the year 11’s are and how keen most of them were to take the exams - albeit with modifications to allow for missed learning.

It’d be interesting to do a vote of all year 11’s to see what they wanted before deciding.

I see I was tagged! Yes MrsH and I are from the same discipline and don't agree on this. I am an opponent of exams, on the whole - or at least exam culture. On a Facebook thread I follow , teachers are basically accused routinely of being inaccurate, unprofessional and a bunch of cheats.

Dennis Sherwood's fascinating studies into the 'accuracy' of exam marking (especially in essay subjects) is fascinating and should be more influential given he did it for HEPI.

I do also teach a subject with NEA and the consultation is such a mess on this. It isn't vocational but is 30% NEA. It is also a subject which copyright laws mean cannot be taught remotely at all effectively. No mitigations at all!

What I am bemused by is the slashing of content from history and English Lit GCSEs but now waiting til , potentially, June to do a 'min exam'. I have no idea how I will idle away the teaching time...

I am befuddled by the consultation and what the point is really. It does sound better than algorithms, hopefully. I don't see how it helps students who have missed loads. And I wish we knew what to teach now!! I hope I am not expected to lurch still through remaining content (badly) whilst tow terms behind so that at the eleventh hour they announce how and in what ways I can 'select' options.

I completely agree @Watermelon999. The kids are the most important part of this and their opinion hasn’t even been asked at all. DS would much prefer to sit the exams with modifications than this complete disaster!!

Year 11s can fill in the consultation : trouble is I think top end will dominate the voices.

The main reason they were abolished

No, not true, the main reason they were abolished was Michael Gove.

Does anyone else think the questions in the consultation survey are worded really badly? For some of them I really had to think which way I actually wanted to answer cause of how it was worded. It might have just been me after a long week though!

Yes, not as badly as the last one though, much derided by the Plain English Campaign.

haven't read it all yet but on appeals it says the school will decide first. I wonder whether appeal outcomes will be moderated? and will schools just say you can't appeal if you got for example 6 or above?

I think it’s leading to a u turn - perhaps modified exams on core subjects.

I am a parent, and I do also feel teachers are being stiffed by the government in not being able to do paid examining in the summer.

Let’s hope for some sort of u turn of a u turn - resulting in modified exams back on the table.

Although on a normal year I would be relatively anti exam, I think this year there should actually be one for my subject, history. I am one of the few who liked coursework back in the day, in my opinion it encouraged subject specific skills in our case research and synthesis. And it had good topics! Kids actually enjoyed it and that relief of having so much % of your final grades in the bag took some of the stress away.

I just can’t see how the proposals can work properly in the timescale. They are proposing a whole new system which will take weeks to formulate. Then the exam boards will need to draft the papers and teachers will need to get to grips with the whole thing while continuing to teach.

So we end up with a situation where students will still be learning content for the next two or three months but no one has any idea if it’s the ‘right’ content or not.

In order to compensate in a small way for missed teaching, I would want the special consideration process to be used to give a percentage boost to students who have had to isolate since September, depending on how many weeks missed.

@noblegiraffe I’d agree if we weren’t back in lockdown but as we are, it would be unfair to factor in those who isolated without also factoring those students disproportionately affected by lockdown.

My DD is in the vulnerable category and has Asperger’s and an anxiety disorder. She’s very high-achieving if in school but really struggles with lockdown and the constant chopping and changing of decisions about when to go back and the uncertainty of exams has been wrecking havoc with her MH. She finds online/homeschooling exceptionally hard and just cannot perform to the same level as if in school. Although she’s vulnerable and could technically go in now, she’s be basically online & homeschooling in the library and her anxiety about travelling due to Covid and me having to shield means shed rather be at home and we agree.

There will be loads of other students in this position whose ‘vulnerability’ and MH/SEND means that the current situation is harder for them on average. It would be unjust if special compensation didn’t go to them but did go to isolating students. As doing it for both groups would probably be a logistical nightmare and opening up a can of worms, regrettably I think having no special considerations may be ‘fairer’.

I think what is not obvious unless you teach a subject where actual texts and content are taught is that you can't simply adjust grade boundaries. If someone has just not done the text they will score zero. They just can't access the question. That's why they should have listened (Ofqual that is) and had optionality in subjects and reduced teaching content. But they stubbornly refused.