Exams cancelled

[noblegiraffe]

Alternative arrangements will be made.

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

They hadn’t missed any of the course but they were also completely unaware that their mocks weren’t just to be used as a kick up the arse (as with every other year in history) but as real predictors of their ability. It really wasn’t a walk in the park.

@NotDonna

Oh my goodness my DD is nowhere near finishing her A level chemistry. Or any of her A level subject content for that matter. There’s a lot of content in all her courses. She also says all 3 of hers are synoptic so it’ll still be hard to do papers if the whole courses haven’t been completed. Plus the majority of teens need that knowledge for their uni course. I didn’t think they were allowed to learn new content in lockdown one? So how did your DD ‘tear through it’? Mm, I may have that totally wrong though. Doesn’t make sense to stop learning new stuff does it? But I’m 90% sure.

6th form college. They seem to have been able to act differently from the schools. We're schools allowed to treat their 16+ students differently but didn’t?

Other differences - they started back in September with blended learning, half in half at home. They weren't able to get all year 12s in last June though. Only the most vulnetable/struggling.

@NoToMisogyny

I’m not saying it was a walk in the park it seems however our Y11’s are being penalised for the choices the Government made then.

I don't know about other subjects but you could perfectly well learn Economics to an A/B grade with a copy of the Anderton textbook and a phone (it's very much how I did my A-levels, minus the phone). But you'd need to be motivated and do a section each week, test yourself (plenty of free test material online) and you'd need to have ploughed on March-August last year. The government did no-one any favours by pretending that time could somehow magically be made up.

We kept teaching content to Y10 and Y12 too, during lockdown one (not live lessons).

Y13 are where they would be on the syllabus. We normally finish the course at the start of May. Y11 we normally stop teaching new content end of Feb. Most classes don’t cover the whole syllabus, but that’s when we switch to revision.

My yr11 has some subjects almost completed - history & maths, I believe, but others not due til much later. History is usually last to finish but with a book less has made a huge difference.

My bosses think I should be able to finish the syllabus by Feb half term! Which is not possible without students doing an enormous amount independently. I usually manage end March though.

I can't leave anything out as exams potentially test everything.

Oh! I’d not finished that...
I’m not sure but I believe yr13 is on track to finish A level syllabi in May. No content has been removed so it’s a lot to cover.
Back in June yr10 & yr12 (as they were then) didn’t return to school. They were each invited in for a well-being style day. They had online learning but I’m sure they ‘revised’ and weren’t allowed to cover new topics. My yr6 went back into school in June.

I think the difference between maths and other subjects is the idea that you don't need to finish the whole course noble as they reach their level. In other subjects, not covering entire content is catastrophic.

My DD is doing A level economics phineyj she’s doing tons independently and worked through the summer hols. They’ve not been told when they’re due to finish. She knows it’s May for Chemistry & maths. When she did her GCSEs a lot of the content for all subjects was being taught right up until Easter - iirc history gcse went up until a couple of weeks prior to exams. It was seriously rushed.

Only for GSCE though piggy, at A-level maths they do need to complete the syllabus (and it’s an incredibly tight fit).

Ofqual know about assessment. They must surely know that asking us to assess and grade a kid’s current performance is impossible. I suspect that, like the DfE, they had no idea exams were going to be cancelled and are tearing their hair out.

I was also reading on twitter that schools haven’t made their exam entries yet and will be questioning what on earth they will be paying exam boards for if they’ll be marking and grading the exams themselves. There will be an argument about fees.

To answer your question for my subject herc is rather outing but hey ho...

In Film Studies, they have to study, quite often, a huge range of possible topics on single film studies (so it could be on this, this, or this or - if we feel like it - this), so I'd narrow that down and say : the question on , say, Jaws (not a n actual set film!) will definitely be on mise en scene. I would drop the comparative element at GCSE and at A Level I would allow schools to choose one film per unit rather than two (quite a few questions require a response covering two films for no discernable reason other than some pernickety Ofqual requirement : ironically writing about one film would produce deeper, thoughtful responses). I would drop the evaluation from the NEAs. It is too late now for these (sensible!) changes to be made.

The remote teaching isn't about whether student have or have not, wi fi or laptops. it is copyright laws which mean we cannot teach in a way that is appropriate, arguably necessary, for our subject. This has not been acknowledged. There is a Facebook group for the subject which pretty much reveals that every single school is in a pickle.

Those days in June were pretty much what the DfE said they should be donna. Annoyingly as ever.

They now speak about them in an entirely different way as if they were crucial curriculum time. As Orwell once said , and noble once quoted we were never at war with Eastasia

, I have never managed to finish my course phiney....

Some courses are like that! You don't teach IB, do you? I will admit I never finished IB Economics. It didn't matter though due to the way it was tested. I used to feel terribly guilty though and sometimes students would rumble me...

All of what you suggest seems eminently sensible for Film. I'm sure other subjects could follow a similar idea, one text only for English, one period of History, one country case study in Geography.

I think science and maths would find cutting content difficult. What could/would/should you cut, and why?

NotDonna if she downloads the specification from the exam board website, she should be able to work out how much they've done? Could also be done by checking off a CGP revision guide.

The CGP revision guide for Econ is the business!

Given how tight it is to get through the syllabi in normal times do teachers want these assessments to be as late as possible? IE, july rather than May/June?
I’ve not finished the consultation form as yet as can’t decide on quite a number of questions. I’m not liking A levels and GCSEs being bundled together in the majority of the consultation as there could be different approaches. The consultation isn’t nuanced enough.

I know it sounds sensible herc . This is why I am so irked that some teachers seemed not to write this in the original consultation and also that very few of them actually responded to it and are now whining!! The changes to the NEA were laughable. they made it harder for anyone doing the written version!!

I don't really donna because the subjects that had content cut will not be able to keep kids going until even May. Much easier just to cut content from the content heavy subjects and assess at normal time.

The whole thing is so vague!

Science doesn't seem to be struggling in my place herc because the practicals have gone.

I think science and maths would find cutting content difficult. What could/would/should you cut, and why?
Isn’t a lot of science tested in a synoptic type fashion especially at A level, this very dependant on layered learning. I’m not a teacher so could be making no sense but hoping you get the gist.