Exams cancelled

[noblegiraffe]

Alternative arrangements will be made.

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

@cptartapp

water DS1 is behind in many subjects because at his outstanding secondary only two of nine teachers did any online teaching March-September. The rest was revision sheets and 'tidy your file'. A few teachers even admitted they were too busy at home with their own DC!!

Wow, ours have been generally pretty good for year 11-not quite so much for the other years though- they’ve definitely prioritised the year 11.

How are mitigating circumstances usually compensated in 'normal' years, i.e., bereavement, illness etc? Some effort has to be made
It's a fixed percentage of the marks awarded. But it's related to when it happens. So a student whose mum was dying of cancer and died 3 months before their A level exams would get no SC for the NEA done during the period.

I do fear a lot of current GCSE students are really going to struggle moving on to A level, particularly in subjects like maths and FL where they need to build on what they (should have) covered at GCSE.

Are we going to see far fewer maths A level students in two years' time? And fewer STEM university applicants? And ditto languages?

Here are the current special consideration criteria. It’s generally much lower than people expect - the maximum allowance is 5% and that applies to things like the death of an immediate family member within 2 months of the exams.

www.jcq.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/A-guide-to-the-spec-con-process-202021-Website-version.pdf

We had two deaths (non covid) in family sadly since the start of term - have told the school and they say have made a note on the sixth form applications and informed the head of year. Had not realised the above. Would hope they would get marks on merit however the time off and emotional impact may mean they get less work done and obviously time off is taken for the funerals.

The problem with having exams would be the massive advantage kids in some schools abs situations would have. Some kids got no teaching during the first lockdown - colleges near me have only had them in every other week since September. Some have no laptops at home etc ...

My understanding of the external exams (which they are suggesting are not compulsory - you can set your own) is that they would be part of the evidence. Not that there would be a rigid mark that would mean you had an 'A'.

In many ways the consultation is quite radical - accepting teacher assessment with no moderation of how many students get each mark. Allowing teachers to choose which topics their students are assessed on

In reality, however, the amount of work for teachers is staggering and the idea of being able to appeal to your school, your teacher is just horrible.

I think the government declaring that there would be no algorithm used has made it very difficult to find a workable model

The government, however, promised that the grades would be in line with last year's (so an increase from 2019) and I think they should be held to account to make sure that this year's students who have had such a rough time aren't disadvantaged

I also have concerns that some schools - private schools for example where parents pay for education - will be under pressure to give very high grades and will find ways to justify this (they're in a lot better position to cram students for topic tests)

For those who are interested the 'promise' that 2021 grades will reflect last year's rather than previous year's grades

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachmentdata/file/940665/6720-22GradingGCSEssASanddAlevelssin_2021.pdf

I have literally no idea how they are going to maintain any sort of grade distribution profile that matches any year if there’s no national moderation.

It makes you yearn for moderated CAGs doesn't it?!

It’s definitely making me yearn for exams.

The whole idea of scrapping exams was supposed to address the disparity in educational experiences between schools and pupils but what they’re trying to do is get us to assess the pupil according to what the exams would assess them as, but without the exams.

Herc I meant use the data the schools have on loss of face to face teaching time. For example schools will know
Child 1 self isolated once, an extra 0.5%
CHild 2 three times, an extra 1.5%
Child 3 not at all, no extra
Years 11 and 13 should not be deprived of adjustments for mitigating circumstances simply because they've been affected en masse.

@cptartapp

Herc I meant use the data the schools have on loss of face to face teaching time. For example schools will know Child 1 self isolated once, an extra 0.5% CHild 2 three times, an extra 1.5% Child 3 not at all, no extra Years 11 and 13 should not be deprived of adjustments for mitigating circumstances simply because they've been affected en masse.

In theory, this info could be shared with the ABs as part of a spec con request

He wants to do Physics the most out of all the A levels

What about university, though? If he wants to potentially do Physics there I think maths A level would be essential, and with his proposed combination I think he'd have to do a degree with no specific subjects required at A level.

@Ellmau

He doesn’t want to do Physics at University so I don’t think having Maths will matter too much, it’s more of a case that he wants to do those A levels because he really enjoys them and they are his best subjects. He actually wants to be a pilot, he has done ever since he was tiny. However with the current situation it’s not looking very likely so he he wants to go to University to have a “back up option” if that makes sense. He is either thinking of Sports Journalism, for which he’d probably need English A level (school only offers English Lit) or Secondary PE teacher. Biology is actually the most logical science for him to go for but A level PE is virtually the same content.
He has another option of doing Media and PE A level and a BTEC business but I don’t think that’s a great combination tbh as they all what I would call soft subjects. He is a bright boy (predicted mostly 7’s and 8’s-apart from in Spanish) so is capable of doing more academic subjects but his arguement is that he’ll get better grades if he really enjoys the subject.

Herc I meant use the data the schools have on loss of face to face teaching time. For example schools will know
Child 1 self isolated once, an extra 0.5%
Child 2 three times, an extra 1.5%
Child 3 not at all, no extra
Years 11 and 13 should not be deprived of adjustments for mitigating circumstances simply because they've been affected en masse.*

Well this would certainly benefit (very unfairly) my DD who has had to isolate twice from college.

She did the same work the non isolating students did, had access to all the class materials and had one to one tutorials with her teachers and/or sat in on live lessons on her computer.
She said she gained (one to one time) rather than lost out.
It would be unfair on other students if she were to be given 1%

Goodbye I agree that isolating affects students differently. I also think where do you end with a policy like that. Students off ill for two weeks and unable to complete work during Sept-Dec of y11 would get no mitigating circumstances in normal times. Nor would they this year if it was only for isolating. How is that fair...?

Truth is whatever ofqual decide will be unfair to some. Exams weren't fair either.

Herc
Absolutely! I just wanted to give a different perspective! There are many students who have had a huge amount of input during lockdown and isolation periods.

Without giving too much away, my own exam group are way ahead of previous year groups despite being hit by lockdown 1&2.

All I can think of is that the lack of anything else to do has meant that they have worked... it’s really strange but they are in a good position. A lot is due to the personalities and character of the group.

Again, just another perspective. I know that this is not the same for every student: subject but it certainly is for some.

Herc, is it an option to buy CGP GCSE books for him given the wifi and laptop issues? Libraries are starting lending again, or they could be floating about on ebay. (Appreciate if motivation is the issue, this may not be a solution).

Goodbye I'm sure the vast vast majority fare better with face to face teaching. And that's who you've got to cater to.

The vast majority would have been fine with exams if we're really going down that route! The vast majority would have got the grades they needed for the next stage and that would have been it. Home learning was provided during isolating periods.

Students off ill for two weeks and unable to complete work during Sept-Dec of y11 would get no mitigating circumstances in normal times.

I agree however these are not normal times. There was a map that showed the average number of days missed due to isolation in areas across the country (I didn’t save it unfortunately) and the north v south comparison was pretty stark. I was pretty shocked, tbh. We also know that the areas hit by repeated isolation are more likely to be areas of higher disadvantage. I think the argument about whether a token gesture (and special consideration is pretty token) to acknowledge that a kid in Hull most likely had way more disruption to their education than a kid in Exeter looks different the further north you go.

@FfsDoE yes you can buy the cpg books. My DDs have bought them from ebay & Amazon. Just ensure correct spec. They also produce revision guides, question booklets & the corresponding answer booklets.

@Goodbye2020Hello2021

Herc Absolutely! I just wanted to give a different perspective! There are many students who have had a huge amount of input during lockdown and isolation periods.

Without giving too much away, my own exam group are way ahead of previous year groups despite being hit by lockdown 1&2.

All I can think of is that the lack of anything else to do has meant that they have worked... it’s really strange but they are in a good position. A lot is due to the personalities and character of the group.

Again, just another perspective. I know that this is not the same for every student: subject but it certainly is for some.

That's why I think we needed an audit of where students really are.

It's all a muddle

Had an email saying school not doing mocks
but they are doing mocks, being asked for them to do them online

Also not adding on the extra time DS is meant to have.

Keep getting messages about please to make sure they do them and how important it is. Well why email and say they are not going ahead then.

If providing mitigating circumstances for isolating students, there will be two big sticking points:

1. Evidence of isolation

If a child was told to isolate by the school, as mine was, the school will obviously have evidence of that. But where a child isolated due to coming into contact with someone outside school, the school only had the parent’s word for that. Schools were not allowed to ask to see a pupil’s isolation texts and many isolated without prompting from a text. While most if not all of these isolations would have been legit, there’s an inherent problem with granting mitigating circumstances without factual evidence.

1. Eligible period of isolation

There would need to be parameters and qualifying periods and that is always going to mean people just miss out, perhaps unfairly. For a start, the isolation period changed in December from 14 days to 10. And which day an isolation period started on will affect how many schooldays were missed.