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Secondary education

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Original poster

Sick for gcse

8 replies

supercheers · 22/05/2022 05:12

Can anyone make me feel better? My DD (in fact the whole family now) caught a gastric bug and she could not attend her History GCSE, she managed to attend maths the next day but was feeling ill and foggy and did not perform at her best.

I'm now at the same stage of the bug where she had to do her exam and feel awful, I don't know how she managed it. She has worked so incredibly hard for these exams and is pretty much a straight 9 student. I can't believe there is no option but to suck up the fact she was sick. The school have applied for special consideration but I think it's only worth one percent or something. I guess she can re-take them but this would be while she is doing four a-levels.

Was anyone else sick for gcse? How did it effect the grade? What did the exam board do? I think with history they just use the the next exam for the grade, I don't think they even look at her mocks. With maths they just base it on how she did feeling awful and it's tough luck. I know we are going to worry endlessly about this until results day now.

OP posts:
TeenPlusCat · 22/05/2022 07:30

With covid they are basing it on the other exams. Unfortunately she may have been better off not sitting the maths if ill and using the other 2 papers though I'm not sure. Did school not advise you? As you say, retaking sounds an unnecessary distraction from A levels unless her grade is way below and she could storm a resit in Nov with minimal prep.

Original poster
supercheers · 22/05/2022 09:56

They really advised to do the maths, she was able to stay out the bathroom unlike history. If it's awful she can re-sit. Sone of the students were crying as it was tough, she just found her brain really slow and knows it's not her best at all. She could have got a 9, maybe an 8 is not so bad but unfair as she couldn't give it her best shot, I can just hope for her she aces the rest and her performance helps them see a discrepancy.

OP posts:
Wannakisstheteacher · 22/05/2022 12:17

But that is the nature of exams is it not? What percentage of other students do you think managed to give it their absolute best shot? There will be numerous others who weren’t feeling 100%, who had recently broken up with boyfriends/girlfriends and were distracted, who didn’t sleep well and couldn’t fully focus. You’ll never know if she could have done better, but equally the last minute revision of a question which did come up for her v’s the question which didn’t come up for someone else etc etc will balance itself out over 25 exams. Exam measure performance on a certain day with the conditions as they are and I very much doubt any student manages to do their absolute maximum is every single exam.

lanthanum · 22/05/2022 19:18

I think the illness, provided the right form is filled in, will give her a 2% uplift on that paper. Unfortunately, I don't think there's any provision for seeing that she did 8% worse on that paper than the other two, so with hindsight, missing it might have been better.

No point in re-taking. It sounds as if she's going to have a great set of results, and universities will be more interested in how she's doing at A-level. If it seems relevant (eg applying for a university course where maths is relevant but not one of her A-levels) then she can always mention having been ill for one of the exams.

What Wannakiss says is very true - and one reason why teacher assessed grades were always going to lead to grade inflation - nobody had a bad day.

PatchworkElmer · 22/05/2022 19:24

I had a massive, quite spectacular nosebleed in an A-Level exam once. Lasted ages, I was writing and trying to manage the blood flow with the other hand. Blood all over the paper 🤢 Nobody did anything about it but I got a B in that subject when I should’ve probably got an A. Straight A’s in everything else.

PatchworkElmer · 22/05/2022 19:32

I had a massive, quite spectacular nosebleed in an A-Level exam once. Lasted ages, I was writing and trying to manage the blood flow with the other hand. Blood all over the paper 🤢 Nobody did anything about it but I got a B in that subject when I should’ve probably got an A. Straight A’s in everything else.

gollygood · 22/05/2022 20:17

PatchworkElmer · 22/05/2022 19:32

I had a massive, quite spectacular nosebleed in an A-Level exam once. Lasted ages, I was writing and trying to manage the blood flow with the other hand. Blood all over the paper 🤢 Nobody did anything about it but I got a B in that subject when I should’ve probably got an A. Straight A’s in everything else.

That's such a shame! Life is unfair I guess. My daughter is very capable and I guess the rest of her grades and her general ability will carry her even if she's missed hitting her perfect score.

Notcontent · 23/05/2022 13:30

this is another reason why GCSEs are not really a true reflection of people’s ability - just performance on the day. It’s a pretty crap system.

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