Exams cancelled 2

[Orangeblossom1977]

Started a new thread as last one is full.

@FreekStar we too have 10 assessments per week until half-term as well as the ones from before easter. DS also did 2 weeks of exams before the final evidence statements were issued that no longer count as less than an hour, a shame as he did really well in some of them but now I feel its just a test of endurance for them all and what is not a level playing field. I personally think exams would have been easier

@bfmhgmum I totally feel external exams would of been easier- especially since all school are doing different things. My ds starts on the 10th for 3 weeks and has 12 -10 exams per week!

Can someone please link me to where it says what teachers need to use as evidence.

I have seen in this thread people talking about the school taking an overview. That the school need to submit the same pieces of evidence for each child and that the assessments need to have been over an hour in length to be used.

I would really just like to find the guidance to clarify how the schools are assessing. DD's school is being very secretive it feels.

All the information is on the JCQ website.
I emailed our school the bit about if they are getting a grade b now they should be awarded a grade b.
Ie. NOT the grade d or whatever equivalent number that is that they scored in their locks last year!

www.jcq.org.uk/summer-2021-arrangements/

Where does it state that assessments must be an hour long? DDs assessments are short of an hour because they are completing them during lesson slots which in themselves are only an hour long!

I've checked the email from the college and it does not state that they will be choosing the best historic assessments for each individual student. That must have been DD's misinterpretation.

The Cambridge board says assessments must be an hour long to count. The other boards don't. Most students aren't taking the Cambridge board.

Hi in case anyone wants to read every school has to create a centre policy for the TAG. The JCQ template / guidance is here

www.jcq.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/JCQ-Guidance-on-the-Determination-of-Grades-for-A-AS-Levels-and-GCSEs-Summer-2021.pdf

Also the Dept of Education confirmed today that all school will be required to submit a sample of evidence from randomly selected students - most likely from Eng and Maths. These is to ensure standardisation in grades across all schools

@saucermilk

Yep massive endurance test here too. Also worried about them using the mock results from the only ever mocks they have taken in November. Each department is weighting the mocks differently so it doesn't even make sense that way!

We had parents evening tonight, and I have figured out that each department is doing things differently and it makes me think none of them have the slightest clue what they're doing 😢

For example, History teacher said he only had one piece of evidence, which is the mock DS sat in November, so that's his current grade. They have 3 more assessments in History and it seems only these 4 pieces of evidence will count.

But other teachers have said they've got a range of evidence like end of topic tests, as well as the mock.

The English teacher said that the historical results of the school would have a bad impact on this cohort, but I thought this wasn't CAGS and that they weren't just able to award a certain amount of grades depending on historical results. It doesn't appear he'll be doing any more assessments in English, like the other subjects either.

So I'm more confused than ever.

I think bear in mind that teachers can't go back in time and re-run Sept-Mar in the knowledge of what the exam boards would finally announce at Easter this year. So of course subjects will be inconsistent. They were all working towards their own specific set of papers/requirements till then.

Results will have to be broadly in line with previous years results (2017 - 219, but not 2020, correct me if I’m wrong), so schools will need to be ranking and this could/will impact some cohorts/individuals presumably?

Except they’re apparently not meant to be ranking. I’ve definitely read that somewhere. Not sure how they can marry any current results to their previous profiles if they don’t rank.

Its a total mess - although I do think it shows that A levels and GCSEs are out of date and that we need a system that does not seek to measure recall but is skill based, we need a total overhaul of the sytem

Students won't need to be ranked within a grade this time. Last time candidates for each subject/qualification had to be ranked in order, so that had the effect of dragging a lot of students down a grade, or even two in some cases, thanks to the algorithm (leading to some daft outcomes like candidates getting 'U's in centres that had never had 'U's).

This time their evidence is being matched to grade profiles, so at least in theory, if a centres normally has more Bs than As but this year they think they've got more As than Bs, that should be OK as long as the evidence is credible.

Thanks @Phineyj, that is helpful.

I agree @twelly it’s very outdated. Since September it has felt like continuous assessment/tests and that’s felt pretty horrid too so I’m not sure what the answer would be.
Thanks phineyj as a layperson it’s really difficult to understand how this is going to work. I do wonder if schools will find this too much effort - (and therefore do whatever is easiest; although no idea what that would be). They seem to have an awful lot of hoops to jump through. Each exam board wanting something slightly different isn’t helpful. Didn’t exam boards, just yesterday, also announce they wanted samples from every subject from every school?

It's madness isn't it, that exam boards are still tweaking the guidelines. This is what should have been worked out months ago.

It’s very difficult to see how this approach is better than the slim version of GCSEs would have been. I don’t think the A levels were slimmed. Yr11’s at our school only had one isolation period so others may view this very differently. Maybe for the schools that have had ridiculous amounts of disruptions it’s of a huge benefit and we’re just not hearing about it?

most of us teachers are struggling somewhat too.

I'm really sorry if it's been mentioned on one of the threads already and I've missed it - but will there be the opportunity for the exams to be taken in the autumn term? School haven't mentioned anything about this.

No, because there are no papers to use.

So this years cohort are even more stuffed than last year.

Last year the November exams had low grade boundaries. I know this because DS retook a GCSE exam and did much better than we could ever have hoped for. I'm wondering what the grade boundaries will be like next November for English and Maths - will the summer results affect them at all?

No papers to use???
Exams were full steam ahead until Xmas then they were going to be slimmed down. Papers are written yonks in advance so what’s happened to the originals and/or slimmed down ones? And if they’ve been cut & pasted into ‘exams-not-exams assessments, or shredded, or used as loo roll why on Earth can’t papers have been written for the autumn series? I don’t understand.

This would be a good question for ministers to ask, yes, especially as the boards are still charging schools "entry fees".