Online mock exams!

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My DD is in Y11 and the school said today evening that they will conduct online mock exams next week with details to follow. How can they prevent cheating from occurring as even if they say that you have to how your face on MS teams, students could easily have another tab open and cheat.

What do you propose? I'm sure it will help schools to have ideas so come up with one and let them know you have something better.

If mocks are cancelled altogether your daughter will have no data profile building for possible CAGs

Well, they can't.
But:

• looking up answers takes time
• wording of quality answers for English & humanities is important
• understanding the science can't be achieved quickly if not already in there

It is better to do them than not to do them. They can do what they want with the outcomes, including using them for learning for some more in purpose mocks later.

Mocks after feb half term could be possible and some other local schools are doing that. I will probably take it up with the school but I doubt they'd listen.

in person mocks, not 'in purpose'.

They will take all that into account but you should take into account how valuable the exam experience is to your dc - it's a stage of their learning. I think it's good they are doing this.

Final entries have to be in by end of feb along with (in normal times) a grade that the teacher thinks the student is likely to get overall. Coursework needs to be marked and reviewed and sent to exam boards by April. Mock exams in Feb do not give enough of a turn around for marking and giving feedback to students before everything else needs to start. And that's just one year group. Schools are damned if they do and damned if they don't at the moment and the government seems to be an active hindrance rather than a help (no suprise there)!! So what do you suggest?

DD's school did early mocks in November, then has some planned for later this January, and some more for before Easter.

I am sure your school will have considered the possibility of children cheating and will have taken it into account in their decision making.

My school are doing the same then hopefully retesting them whenever we’re back. We don’t really have a choice at the moment.

DS’ school sent the end of Year 11 mocks home for students to complete them in “exam conditions” and return to school..

Massive cheating exercise, I decided to maintain exam conditions and DS who is normally within the top 3 of the class was the second from the bottom, perfect grades all around. He is back to the top of the class but it took him 4 months to recover.

They are sending the mocks again next week, I hope they have worked out things better this time.

I know some universities are doing open book exams, where the student has 24 hours to complete the exam before sending it back. If they have not studied not even having the book open will save them from a bad grade.

My DD sat mocks before Christmas but several of them were based on the 2019 paper which she hadn't looked at because they had been asked not to.
Guess what? Most people had
Basing things on mocks is really unfair.

My sons school has asked the kids and the parents (where possible) - to sign and say they will take the mocks in good faith.

They have also announced they will be using the Swedish online platform for taking formal exams (exam.net) which makes it hard to cheat. Apparently it ca see if you move away from the browser, and teachers can see what you are doing etc.

They are also planning further mocks after Easter I think.

It's a start.

My son has sat online exams. They record everything. Also if he made a sudden movement or change the screen will freeze and you can't go on.

We tested this in the pre test.

They can also made sure you do a 360.

People who cheat will cheat.

The vast majority will be fine.

They can analyse the recordings too.

Actually taking time away from exams to look something up tends to mean you don't have the proper amount of time to answer the questions you can do.