Teacher Accessed Grades - what a joke

[Zpegleg]

I have just found out that my daughters school is doing full A level exams for A levels - that is nine 2 hour exams in May She has three weeks to sit them with no knowledge of content. The mental health at the school is terrible. Other schools are doing one hour mini exams and giving the predicted grades to the students. Their head teacher told the teachers make sure you give them A* -As . So they are telling the students what is in the tests. This is so unfair. Some students just get As for one mini exam , my daughter has to sit 3 x 2 hour exams for the same A level. How can this system be right. There is no standardised method across schools.

I cannot understand how this government has palmed this off and ‘ trusted the teachers’ . That is rubbish.

How can this system be right. There is no standardised method across schools.

No, there isn’t. The govt cancelled exams with no plan, Ofqual spent 2 months dithering then said ‘fuck it we don’t know’ and have passed the job of deciding how to sort the mess to schools.

And it’ll be teachers who get the blame when results are inconsistent and inflated.

Write to your MP and ask that your complaint be forwarded to the Secretary of State for Education.

Yep I already did that and nothing. I so angry for my daughter. Some students she knows at other schools are being given A* with hardly any effort. She now has to basically to sit her full A levels because her school thinks it is the right way to award her. How stressful for her when she thought that she would only sit some mini exams. She is resigned to not now meeting her grades for her uni offer.

A school that gives all its kids A*s will be picked up and moderated so don’t assume that is what will actually happen, it’s not a complete free-for-all.

Concerning.
We are still awaiting advice or model assessments from exam boards.
If a student has been told their grade already that is wrong as that should not be shared by the school. Can you speak with other parents and raise concerns as a group?

"She has three weeks to sit them with no knowledge of content"

What makes you think she won't know what she's being examined on?

A school that gives all its kids As will be picked up and moderated so don’t assume that is what will actually happen, it’s not a complete free-for-all.*

Hopefully, but remember what happened last year...

It’s exam boards doing random sampling of evidence plus targeted sampling where the results look really weird. Schools will want to avoid moderation because that will be a massive ballache.

Yes that does seem ridiculous. However I don't think other schools are basing their grades on just one mini exam. They need robust evidence for the grades awarded, so should have multiple examples of work and exams that demonstrate how they came to the grade.
My daughter is a bit annoyed that her history GCSE grade will be based on the average of all her exams since the start of Y10. She rightly pointed out that while it was fair enough for the school to say the next three months of work would count, to now say things from 18 months ago was going to be used, when they had no idea at the time, was deeply unfair.

We are having this with GCSEs. Mock exams were taken, some students were given all the content by their teachers, students sat the same exam at different times, so their mates told them the answers. Some classes had covered more content. Now the mocks are probably being used as part of their grade. Kids are cheating on assessed work too.
So sick of it all. Every piece of work is constant pressure.
DD was predicted really good grades, didn't do well in some of her mocks because of the above reasons and she's just given up, as she feels she's not got a chance now because of her mock grades. I absolutely hate her school.

She has three weeks to sit them with no knowledge of content"

What makes you think she won't know what she's being examined on?

Well if it is anything like the GCSE mini exams the school will not get the papers until the day the students break up for Easter and the exams are the week after they go back! Absolute madness!

DD v stressed this morning thinks her exams are the end of March sat in class most last 45 minutes but thinks photography is a 7 hour paper. How can they sit replacement GCSE’s early when they have missed so much schooling etc. Its shambolic.

DD is still being taught, they've no where near finished the courses in some subjects. The amount of homework is insane and the online provision has been dreadful.

Dd's 3 a-level subjects each seem to be doing something different. She is so stressed and demotivated. Heaven knows what her results will be like...pre pandemic she was on course for A* A A but I suspect it's looking more like ABC, so sad and unfortunate. Just hope the universities are feeling generous!

@Tinty

She has three weeks to sit them with no knowledge of content"

What makes you think she won't know what she's being examined on?

Well if it is anything like the GCSE mini exams the school will not get the papers until the day the students break up for Easter and the exams are the week after they go back! Absolute madness!

Except the schools will be deciding which topics they will be examining on not the exam boards. They will then ask for the papers for those topics

Stumbled upon this thread. I have a DS who was involved in the exams debacle last year, so was hoping to read that things were much better this time round. Sad to hear that it sounds like, once again, it will be a case of each school doing its own thing with no standardisation across the piece.

DS went to a school that internally moderated, so his results are not only lower than they might have been, but everyone assumes they must be inflated because many other schools gave more aspirational grades. So they've been doubly devalued.

My advice to those going through it this year is that you just have to accept that this is not remotely fair, and to concentrate on moving your child to their next step, whatever that might be. If it helps (in a sort of negative way that other people had it worse), remind your children that at least they know the basis on which they will be assessed now, whereas their year older counterparts didn't know right until the last minute.

Hang on a minute. I sat through a departmental meeting last night where we looked at the evidence we already had (mock done under strict exam conditions, performances recorded under exam conditions, compositions mostly completed etc.) We will apparently be using these mini exam things.

However, the information has not yet been released to schools from OfQual. It won't be released until 31st March, the day before we finish for Easter. So I don't know how schools can be so certain of what they are doing until we get the information.

We are telling all our students it's business as usual. We have completed all the content for GCSE/A level examined components. They know they won't be performing to a visiting examiner and their performances are shorter, as are their compositions, but they also know that they need to keep pushing on so that the evidence we collect and use shows them at their very best.

@gleegeek

Dd's 3 a-level subjects each seem to be doing something different. She is so stressed and demotivated. Heaven knows what her results will be like...pre pandemic she was on course for A* A A but I suspect it's looking more like ABC, so sad and unfortunate. Just hope the universities are feeling generous!

Oversubscribed universities are unlikely to be feeling generous, or rather, able to be generous. University if Bath already sent an email out to offer holders telling them not to expect any places to be given lower than their offers. They already have more students who have deferred places, plus we don't know how many of the 2020 students who recieved unexpected high grades withdrew and reapplied to better unis. Bath says it offered fewer places this year as it is expecting more students to get their high predictions.

That is not how it feels here in my household. If my DD gets the grades she needs, it feels like they will be more hard won than if she'd just taken the exams as normal.

(That is not how it feels here in my household. If my DD gets the grades she needs, it feels like they will be more hard won than if she'd just taken the exams as normal.

I think that's the problem. There is no way to distinguish between the students who got lucky with teacher assessed grades that are flattering, and ones that have had a tough year and jumped through a zillion hoops to get potentially lower grades than they might have done in an exam.

Another one with a studious and organised DD, reduced to a stressed, tearful mess thanks to the disparity in schools.

She is part of a joint 6th form - two schools under the same name. One teacher has gone through the paper with the students, given them a comprehensive list of what's on each paper. DD's class has been given a vague, much shorter list of topics which in reality has meant she's revised everything to be on the safe side.

Both schools are going to have all results pooled and compared to give grade boundaries. Which class is going to fair better I wonder?!

Absolutely sick of this shit show year already.

Ds2 (yr 13) has just told me he has two weeks of exams from Monday -teachers were told today.

Just crossing fingers that he does ok and they take last Nov mocks into account - he got his predicted then which is what he needs (and this all that matters really).

What a mess though. Public exams, while very much not favouring some students (inc two of my dc) at least have clarity, rigour and consistency.

remind your children that at least they know the basis on which they will be assessed now, whereas their year older counterparts didn't know right until the last minute

But they don't know and they've had far less teaching than the previous years yr11s.

But they don't know and they've had far less teaching than the previous years yr11s.

They know it will be teacher assessed based on work they have covered.
Previous year 11s didn't even know this time last year whether they would have exams or not!

@UserTwice

But they don't know and they've had far less teaching than the previous years yr11s.

They know it will be teacher assessed based on work they have covered.
Previous year 11s didn't even know this time last year whether they would have exams or not!

I'm wanting to play top yrunpscofcwho had it worse, as its been appallingly handled for last year and this year. But I do think anyone who is not a parent of a current Y11 or Y13 student could be under the illusion that there are no exams, and teachers are awarding grades on any work that has been done.

That is not the case. Our children will be sitting exams. The information about what will count and what evidence will be needed has still not yet been released to schools and colleges. The uncertainty, has gone on since exams were canceled at the beginning of this year. There won't be study leave. Different teachers, even in the same schools are telling kids different things from day to day, because they are having to keep the students working, and just hope they are making the right decisions for their Sydenham until they know otherwise. The level of stress has been huge, since new year, and continues. Please don't think students are being gifted their grades on the basis of past work. They are being tested and don't yet know what on.

Sorry about the typos. Stupid Swipey keyboard on my phone.that should say I don't want to play top trumps about who has had it worse.

I don't want to play top trumps about who has it worse either. It's shit for this year's exam students. But it was also shit for last year's exam students and they have just had to get through it. Stressing about it does not help anyone (which was meant to be the point of my original post).
And remember that some of last year's exam students are also this year's exam students (do they win the "who has it worst" poll?)