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Secondary education

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dd given a past paper to do at home under exam conditions - what would you do?

134 replies

LetterOfTheLawFella · 23/01/2021 20:53

dd was meant to be taking her gcses this year but obviously things have changed. She's been struggling with French and got a 3 in the mini mock she did before Christmas. This was the higher level. We talked about maybe doing the foundation paper instead and it looks like her teacher is thinking the same as he's sent an email asking parents to supervise her doing a foundation level past paper under exam conditions. 45 minutes and no external support. He's confirmed this will be used as part of the teacher assessment.

Would you help your child in this situation?

OP posts:
rockinaftermidnite · 24/01/2021 03:58

I wouldn't cheat, if that's what you mean. Of course it's a tempting thought but it sets a very bad example and it isn't fair on everyone else. If my DC don't have the ability to pass an exam on their own, I wouldn't be helping them by letting them cheat.

Terracottasaur · 24/01/2021 04:34

You aren’t talking about supporting her to do the best she can, you’re talking about cheating.

Supporting her to do the best she can is helping her revise and prepare for the exam and then making sure she has a calm and quiet space in which to sit it. Nothing more.

DifficultBloodyWoman · 24/01/2021 04:41

I’m language teacher so let me tell you what will happen if your daughter is my student.

I’ll mark all of the papers.

I’ll check to see what common errors there are. The main purpose is to find out if everything has been both taught correctly and understood correctly. It also highlights students who may have been cheating by ‘helping’ each other but mostly, I will modify my teaching to focus more on a grammar point/vocabulary/whatever.

Then I’ll check to see if anyone did particularly well or badly based on their past performance. If Jane’s mum has just had another baby, their will be distractions in that home that could affect her grade, or Tommy’s parents are getting divorced. I’ll ask students about their grades and what went wrong. Because I teach languages, I have done this in the target language and had such a brilliant response from a student, I booted her up to the next level to match her speaking and made her promise to work her ass off to get her written work up to scratch. She didn’t disappoint. I have also allowed resits for those with reasons but less ability to demonstrate their skills on the spot.

Those who have performed significantly better than anticipated also get looked more closely. I’ll double check their answers can replicated using similar questions/grammar/vocabulary. Then I’m usually pretty blunt and ask them why that can do x on a test but not with me. The silence speaks volumes but is then usually followed by a rush of crappy excuses.

I have been known to say ‘I am paid to mark your work, not your friend’s/sister’s/father’s/brother’s’.

If I believe cheating has occurred, you get a zero, not a second chance.

I will ensure my HoD knows the reason for the zero. I will speak to the parents and no amount of pressure will make me change that grade.

There will be a lecture regarding the importance academic integrity, how plagiarism is theft, how children learn by example, and how languages are taught and learned in such a way that they require building blocks and foundations. If I don’t know you are missing a building block, I will not teach that building block and therefore you will not effectively learn the next block.

Students that cheat lose my respect. Their work will always be subject to additional scrutiny in my classroom.

If I am your daughter’s teacher, there is at least a 90% chance that you and I will be having a chat a few days after the test. Do you really want me to judge your parenting and lecture you? You are welcome to lie or hang up the phone but that isn’t going to help your daughter’s education.

Let me know what she doesn’t know so that I can actually help her achieve her potential.

Don’t teach her to be a cheat or take short cuts. Teach her to be honest and to learn.

NotDonna · 24/01/2021 09:16

@thewinkingprawn

Yes I would help. As I imagine many parents do (although probably won’t admit it here 😀). Same as all the help that goes in behind the scenes with coursework.
You’d cheat? Encourage your child to be a cheat? Im absolutely disgusted. Have you zero integrity?
NotDonna · 24/01/2021 09:20

@BornOnThe4thJuly

I probably would to be completely honest. I would then make sure I gave her lots of support in filling in the gaps, in areas I’d had to help with though. I think they’ve been so disadvantaged in the last 12 months, that they deserve a leg up.
I’m disgusted and appalled
SimonJT · 24/01/2021 09:22

I would support my child by providing a quiet and comfortable area to complete the past paper.

Teaching a child to cheat and teaching a child that its okay to benefit from cheating isn’t support, its selfish and irresponsible.

LetterOfTheLawFella · 24/01/2021 09:29

@bravefox I hope that is the case

@DifficultBloodyWoman thank you for providing your perspective. My plan is to get dd to do a couple of different papers first and go through any errors with her before she attempts the assessed one.

I'd be interested to know how many of you who would absolutely not help your child have children taking their exams this year.

OP posts:
Twinkie01 · 24/01/2021 09:34

Are you worried that other parents helping their children will disadvantage your DD? If so bring it up with the teacher.

LetterOfTheLawFella · 24/01/2021 09:35

@Twinkie01 yes I am

OP posts:
GCAcademic · 24/01/2021 09:37

Sadly, a lot of employers and universities are not going to take this cohort's exam results seriously. The OP is precisely the reason why.

MistleTOEboughski · 24/01/2021 09:41

I want my child to feel it's not the end of the world if you aren't doing too well in a subject as long as they are doing the best they can, and you are confident everything will be OK even if they do get a bad mark. By doing something they will know is cheating you are sending a message you think a good grade is so important you will take desperate measures to get it. I want my dd to have confidence to try things and not be scared to fail sometimes and not feel bad if she does but have that resilience to try a new way and keep going.

AlexaShutUp · 24/01/2021 09:41

I'd be interested to know how many of you who would absolutely not help your child have children taking their exams this year.

I have a dd doing GCSEs this year. I absolutely wouldn't help her. I don't believe in cheating. Also, I wouldn't ever want to send the message to my dd that her own efforts aren't good enough, that I don't trust her to get through it without my help. What a terrible vote of no confidence that would be if your own mum thought you were so incapable that you need to behave in such a dishonest way! Ultimately, I guess I value my dd's self esteem more than I value her grades. And teaching her basic morality, of course.

A lot of parents clearly would cheat, though, which is why we should not allow teacher assessment to be based on exams taken at home. Thankfully, most teachers will quickly realise what's going on in any case. They aren't daft.

AlexaShutUp · 24/01/2021 09:42

I want my child to feel it's not the end of the world if you aren't doing too well in a subject as long as they are doing the best they can, and you are confident everything will be OK even if they do get a bad mark. By doing something they will know is cheating you are sending a message you think a good grade is so important you will take desperate measures to get it. I want my dd to have confidence to try things and not be scared to fail sometimes and not feel bad if she does but have that resilience to try a new way and keep going.

Yes, totally agree.

Goingdooolally · 24/01/2021 09:43

Shocking! Cheating - terrible message to your child 😱

WeAllHaveWings · 24/01/2021 09:45

[quote LetterOfTheLawFella]@bravefox I hope that is the case

@DifficultBloodyWoman thank you for providing your perspective. My plan is to get dd to do a couple of different papers first and go through any errors with her before she attempts the assessed one.

I'd be interested to know how many of you who would absolutely not help your child have children taking their exams this year.[/quote]
Ds is doing exams this year.

I wouldn't help him other than to advise him before the exam to read questions carefully, watch out for common silly mistakes that lose marks and once answered look back and make sure he has answered the actual question.

I maybe would have given him an extra minute or two, which is still cheating, if he was just finishing up, but absolutely no longer.

Twinkie01 · 24/01/2021 09:48

So just honestly bring it up with the teacher. Say you've done a poll on here and most of the parents are dishonest and would help their child cheat. 😂

Stinkyjellycat · 24/01/2021 09:49

How is cheating helping your child? I just can’t fathom this. If you want to help your child, support their learning in whatever way you can and allow the teacher to do their job by assessing your child’s real abilities.

NoGoodPunsLeft · 24/01/2021 09:49

I know it's not the same but DD had an end of unit test which she had to do alone (she's year 4) it went against my natural instinct to not help when she was stuck but if I'd have helped then her teacher wouldn't know where she needed help

user194729573 · 24/01/2021 09:51

I'd be interested to know how many of you who would absolutely not help your child have children taking their exams this year.

Calling cheating "help" doesn't make it a helpful or ethical thing to do.

Doing past papers with her beforehand, coaching her to fill gaps in her knowledge, teaching her exam technique, collaborating with her teacher to ensure better annihilation are helpful actions.

JabbyMcJabface · 24/01/2021 09:51

Are you all saying you wouldn't do everything you could to support your child to do the best they can?

Absolutely I would yes, to SUPPORT THEM to do the best THEY CAN. As in, make sure they do the test as instructed by the teacher, make sure the house is quite whilst they’re taking the test, probably even help them revise before hand, go through the answers with them afterwards, etc.

How is helping them cheat at the test in any way supporting them to do the best that they can?

And since when did parents help with coursework? Mine certainly didn’t. I think the extent of their help was a bit of photocopying. Was I the only one left to get on with it?!

TheFallenMadonna · 24/01/2021 09:51

Last year, Ofqual made it clear that work submitted after schools closed should be treated with caution, for this reason. We badly need the guidance for this year...

user194729573 · 24/01/2021 09:51

Bloody autocorrect. Better invigilation Grin

lottiegarbanzo · 24/01/2021 09:53

Help by creating a quiet, exam-replica environment, yes. That's quite hard to achieve at home. There's something about an exam hall that really sharpens the concentration. Though 45 minutes isn't long.

Interrupting her and flapping about, distracting her and preventing her form concentrating properly would not be helping; either in this exam, or in learning how to tackle future exams.

PeppermintSoda · 24/01/2021 09:54

This makes me glad dd's GCSE grades last summer were based on what she did in school only.

Caswint · 24/01/2021 09:55

I think that most posters are lying, OP. I suspect that, yes, most parents would help if they could (giving more time, pointing out errors, etc). I'm not supporting that, but it's probably true. And it does make it impossible to know if you should follow the instructions to the letter or try to change a 3 to a 4.

I would reiterate that it is hard to cheat well, and the teacher will likely know if she is suddenly proficient. It would be far better for her to take this opportunity to see where she is honestly at, and then revise hard before Spring.

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