Exams cancelled 2

[Orangeblossom1977]

Started a new thread as last one is full.

DD is flagging already- after two weeks of tests every day- so studying every night and all weekend she's feeling the strain. And there's four more weeks of this to go! How on earth can they get their intended grades under this regime? It's beyond ridiculous! Exams would have been far kinder!

My DS has last mini assessments tomorrow, and has told me not to disturb him this weekend. - as he will be in a long, long, long slumber!

Ours are going on for the next three weeks, already had two. Also heard about a very hard maths assessment (higher) which was one of the first ones taken. The non-calculator one.

The teacher emailed to say DS could email for the grade but he wasn't keen to as he found it so tricky.

Oh I don’t blame him portico!!

@Orangesandlemons77 do you mean the teacher would tell him the grade he got on the assessment?

I've passed the point of being stressed about all of this and have entered some sort of deluded mental state of 'what will be, will be'. DD has worked her arse off and just finished the first 'easier' set of assessments a.k.a. exams (assessment is a bullshit term) and now has 10 days until the second set which are all longer and much harder. The amount of time they have been given to revise is not really enough IMO but she is trying her best. The art dept have finally given a date for coursework to be handed in which is 3 days after all the exams are done then she has to sit an art exam - why?! The art GCSE exam was cancelled and it is supposed to be 100% portfolio graded - that last week before half term could have been spent finishing everything off which is desperately needed by most students by the sound of it. Instead DD is trying to do an hour of art each night on top of all her revision.

So many schools handling this so badly!

I don't know what mine is doing for GCSEs because I have no DC in that cohort, but the assessments for A level seem reasonable and well spaced. Lots of support for revision available too. The only issue is that DD2 can't access any of that because the UTI she had with her appendicitis has come back and she's very unwell again. But once again the school are being very understanding and her Psychology teacher has already said that her portfolio of evidence (consisting of marked assessments) is well above that of anyone else in her class and that they can evidence whatever grade she gets. (looking at an A).

Still, scary times for so many.

The art dept have finally given a date for coursework to be handed in which is 3 days after all the exams are done then she has to sit an art exam - why?!

Students at our school had to hand in all their art yesterday, right in the middle of all the assessments. No exam, but I think students would happily have taken that option in order to keep their sketchbooks longer. This just shows how unfair it all is. So many different rules and deadlines between schools.

DD's ART GCSE deadline is next Wednesday, all work & portfolios to be handed in. She then starts 2 weeks of "assessments" aka Exams in all subjects. Agree with the comments about having to get Art finished right before the exams start - she's busy finishing off art when she could be revising.
I've also pretty much given up worrying though, she should do well enough to start the A levels she wants; not what she could have achieved under normal circumstances but it is what it is and no amount of stressing (my usual state of mind) will change it. It's upsetting, annoying, frustrating, unfair but I can't change it or influence the outcome.

@SusannaMorvern

The art dept have finally given a date for coursework to be handed in which is 3 days after all the exams are done then she has to sit an art exam - why?!

Students at our school had to hand in all their art yesterday, right in the middle of all the assessments. No exam, but I think students would happily have taken that option in order to keep their sketchbooks longer. This just shows how unfair it all is. So many different rules and deadlines between schools.

Absolutely it is unfair. Even within schools in some ways - my DD's art teacher has given virtually no guidance from the start but the other teacher has been very clear what needs to be included to get a good grade. She also completely ignored all the kids during both lockdowns. I've ended up researching it all myself as we could never get answers and to be honest the art teacher has had no input or bearing on anything - I may as well have homeschooled DD for art myself.

DD also was doing really well in French and her teacher (who was wonderful) has never been back since Nov and they have had supply teachers coming and going so that has affected her badly. She was going to do French a-level but has changed her mind because of this. Such a shame for them all that the DfE couldn't get their shit together and make a consistent plan for the whole country.

My DS is doing triple science but has had no chemistry teacher since before lockdown 1. Needless to say he won’t be getting a great grade.

My DS school is so big the year 11s are split into two parts.
Since Covid the school is running alternate two week timetables with two hour slots of lessons.
For the first maths exam one half of the school had 16 hours of maths lessons in the two weeks before the exam. The other half of the school had only 1 hour maths lesson the morning of the actual exam. With the two week half term being before this rotation it meant this one half of the school had only 1 hour of maths lesson in a whole month before the exam.
This half of the school hadn't been emailed the list of topics to revise, the other children were told it in class and covered the topics in class.
There were no revision classes available even though parents asked.
So yes even within the same school the students are going through completely different things.
The assessments should have been put back to June so the children across the country could catch up on in school teaching. They should have all sat the same assessments with schools choosing slimmed down topics.
More people could have been employed to make and they could have worked around the clock.
I am very stressed!

I thought it was just our school being rubbish, but it seems lots are in similar boats. Yes, we've had the inconsistency between different classes and what info they are told about the exam, yes to teachers who didn't teach anything during lockdown (and the ones who put their heart and soul into it), yes to the teachers who have vanished altogether and non specialist supply teachers. Yes to unlikely to make predicted grades now.
We've also had last minute changes, assessments with no warning, not enough revision time, work that we were told contributed towards grade removed after lots of time was spent in it.

@SusannaMorvern I'm so sorry your DD is going through this too. This thread makes for very sobering reading, and we are just a minuscule subset of parents watching this shit show roll out in front of us, totally helpless.

We have experienced many of the issues mentioned below by other posters:
totally inequality, not just between schools but even between classes in the same subject in the same school! Differences in the number of lessons they have had (our school also has a split year group like a PP and they work on a 2 week rotational timetable). It is a large school with 6 full classes (each with different teacher) across the core subjects. Huge differences between how each of these classes has been taught during lockdown and how they have been prepared for the assessments. Eg in maths some classes appear to have been given very clear guidance on specific topics to revise whereas DD's class was given no clues and simply told to "revise it all".

Gaps in teaching are only just been discovered as a result of students from particular class(es) being unable to answer certain questions on the assessment papers. Turns out their class(es) were never taught those particular topics but other classes in the year with different teachers have covered everything thoroughly.

My eldest DD is in Y13 doing A-levels and spent hours and hours researching and writing her English coursework during lockdown. It was an excellent piece of work. Only for the school to turn round and say they were no longer going to consider the coursework in the assessment because some of the coursework submitted by some students was not of the expected standard. So they have basically penalised the students who worked hard to produce their coursework during lockdown in favour of the ones who didn't bother!

@NotDonna

Oh I don’t blame him portico!!

Thanks we are glad that Eng Lit, his bête noire, was a truncated version of both Lit Papers. He only had to attempt 2 qns., abd he was happy with what gone out - and he was able to avoided the dreaded Shakespeare play 😀😀😀😀

Apologies I always make typos on the iPhone

@storminasnowglobe

You have a yr11 and a yr13?! Oh my, I don't envy you, just a yr11 in this house, which is stressful enough.

I keep reading that this years yr11 have it easy, as they are being "given" their grades without the stress of an exam .

@SusannaMorvern I totally agree...or I hear people saying the exams are cancelled!! I have to correct them saying, not sure where they are being cancelled . In my ds school it is full steam ahead - candidate Number, time tables and all exams are in the hall!!

@SusannaMorvern

I keep reading that this years yr11 have it easy, as they are being "given" their grades without the stress of an exam .

Hi SusannaMorvern I have both Y11 and Y13 children. Yes, they are under pressure and have worked hard. But, even I have to admit they have had it easiest than cohorts that sit the actual public exams. That being said, it does not diminish their performance, as they can only attempt what is put in front of them.

@portico
My DD has done both, as she sat some GCSEs early. She would much rather have actual GCSE exams than the stress that is the current assessments.

@portico I really can't agree that this year's y11s have 'had it easy'. Yes they aren't sitting the full on GCSE exams, but they have had so much uncertainty and disruption over the past year, and not sitting the actual exams only mitigates partly for that. For many the ongoing assessments being set by the school while other lessons are still going on must be more stressful than a known exam period.

My DD has been totally screwed up by this. Her MH issues triggered by covid meant she couldn't return to school or education. She has only been on stable medication since this March.

We had to make a decision what subjects to keep or drop based on thinking exams would be delayed into June. So we kept 2 that she had started in Y9. Then it was changed to assessments in May (so we've lost a month of recovery time) && school can't take work done in y9 into account when assessing grades. One subject that she had done 2/3rd of the syllabus of says they can't give her a grade at all right now. Trying to balance recovery with her limited bandwidth to get some grades out of all of this. Not the school's fault, but stressful for me. (Hiding it from DD).

Hi TeenMinusTests
I was not trying to belittle the efforts of current Y11s. I just think internal assessments helped our school compared to external exams. DS has done better in truncated internal Eng exams than he would have if he sat the public external exams. Empathise with your point with re MH, missed schooling and uncertainty over assessments. After poor mock results in December, I was in turmoil on what to do. But, I recognised internal assessments could be a boon, and it has turned out be so far. Apologies again, but I do prefer the internal assessments regime compared to public exams.

I think the internal assessments so depends on how the individual schools decide to manage them. DD's school seems from the outside to have been steering a pretty smooth course for most students. Other schools seem to be letting each department do what the hell they like with no oversight on the overall workload/stress on the pupils.

And again, some pupils will prefer lots of smaller assessments, others would prefer clear-cut exams to aim for.

portico My rant was just a general rant at the situation my DD is in, not aimed at you at all. She worked so hard at school from Reception all the way to Easter y10, has had a number of difficulties to battle against, and then Covid screwed it all up at the last minute.

No worries TeenMinusTests
It’s pressure central here at home. DS1 has achieved top scores across the board in his A Level Mocks, but still waiting on a Uni place - most likely a rejection.
DS2 is likely done the same in his gcse mini assessments, but scored poorly in mocks last December. It’s nervy, anxious and angst ridden in this household - I may seek comfort in my friend Jack Daniels or Jim Beam lol