AIBU to think that Y10 & y12 kids are in the worst position?

[Notonetojudge]

I know, this isn’t aibu but I thought you lot might be more interested than the general public. Y9 and below haven’t started most of the GCSE work, Y11 And 13 are going to be ok, but Y10 and 12 are missing a huge chunk of learning time. To those who write/grade national exams, can this be taken into account in 2021?

Year 10 and Year 12 students are at least all in the same boat.
It's going to mean the gap between disadvantaged and advantaged students (i.e. those that can work effectively at home, have educated parents that can help, money to buy learning resources) is increased.

I have a Year 11 student who is likely to do badly out of teacher assessment and may be forced to change what he'd hoped to do, so I find your "Year 11 and Year 13 students will be ok" a bit blase. Year 10 and Year 12 students can at least influence their own future.

Outside the sick and their families, these are the people I feel most sorry for over this situation.

There’s no way we can reasonably expect anyone to go into national exams with half the school year being in enforced, rushed and underprepared home learning.

I’m genuinely worried about what’s going to happen to those kids whose parents are either still working in key roles, can’t be arsed or don’t have the ability to home school. What about those from homes which don’t have WiFi or adequate screens for the amount of kids that need them for schoolwork? What about the kids that NEED that socialisation?

I think every child in an exam year should be given the choice to repeat the academic year. I can’t see how the government can provide a fair alternative to these students.

Agreed, my DD is Year 12 so not missing any exams which is great but she’s missing a whole lot of teaching. She does 3 A Levels and only one of them has had work sent. I really hope this is considered when they sit exams.

How would that work though terrible without having a knock on effect to younger year groups? I agree with you by the way, I just don’t see how it could happen in practice without every child repeating the year and the little ones due to start reception not starting which would then have implications for those waiting for nursery pkaces

They might even give up onto gcses. I predict a level syllabus being reduced for next year

I think it's awful for all older kids,I feel quite envious of people with small kids who will just enjoy time at home atm and won't have a huge impact on their education.

I feel more sorry for yr11 and yr13 all that hard work and no chance to prove themselves.
I think the younger years will be taught and catch up and the exams possibly altered accordingly.

I dunno Zog, but the situation at the moment just isn’t fair. My kids aren’t even in school yet, but I remember 15 year old me and if my grades had relied on teacher assessment instead of exams I’d have been FUCKED.

If the government have the means and ways to pull support measures for businesses and individuals out of nowhere, they can come up with a way to rebalance the scales with this.

I agree. I am a teacher and I said this to my Year 10 class before school closed.

I told them there would be procedures put in place to try to ensure the current Year 11s would not be disadvantaged from not being able to do their exams, but come next June nobody will be saying 'those poor kids missed a few weeks of term last year, we better make sure they're not at a disadvantage'.

As a parent of a Y10 and Y12 boys I completely agree and I am very worried. If you discount terms 5 & 6 of the 2nd year (when they are revising & taking the exams) then it means they potentially are losing 25% of the course time if they don't go back until September. And you can't just remove elements of the course as different schools do them in a different order. My Y12 son is working hard at home but my Y10 son isn't so I am very worried about the impact on his results.

I think mitigation will have to be put into place if they kiss a term

Exams will have to be adjusted for yr10 and 12

Y11s do have the choice of taking the exams later don’t they if teacher assessment grade isn’t great?

I have Y10 DS, I do worry about him and his peers and how they will adapt the exams. At the moment he is doing all the work he is being set but it doesn’t replace classroom teaching.

It’s pretty shit for us all really. It’s. It a competition on who it’s worse for.

Dd was due to sit her GCSE’s this year, dn has hers next year. I feel for them both.

Also this might not be the only period of lockdown we have in the next year/18 months so they may miss even more classroom time.

Yanbu. I have a y12 and am hoping that there will be some sort of solution that takes into account that most kids aren't at private schools with live teaching every day.

My DC are Y11 and Y13, and for a couple of days it was only them, and the Y6s that I work with that I worried about. Once I engaged my brain though I realised that there is no doubt that it will have the biggest impact with the Y10 and Y12. The gaps in parental engagement and access to learning mean the learning gap will be enormous by the time they return to school, even if that is before the end of next term.

It will be very difficult for them. As a pp has said, they can't just cut out chunks of the syllabus either since schools teach it in different orders.

I suspect we might have to see a second year of teacher assessment grades.

Grade boundaries will change if everyone is affected or, as someone else has said, possibly skip parts of the course?

I think it’s a good point. My Y11 DD, having worked so hard to overcome her issues (diagnosed dyslexic end of Y9), could have been expected to really improve her grades in the actual GCSEs. The saving grace is her teachers know that, have good data and will be fair. She will also get the chance to appeal or sit the exams later in the year. I s that the same scenario for Y13s? Y12 DD is going to have lost at least half the years worth of face to face teaching and will not get to sit Y12 exams before having to look at the uni courses she can realistically her on. Her school have been amazing so far in supporting the at home learning though and Y12s should be moving towards more independent learning. Y10 (and Y9 increasingly starting the content heavy GCSEs) will be very disadvantaged I think.

Incidentally, right at the start of this, before they’d decided on schools out/exams etc, there was a guy (can’t remember his name), from the union of headteachers, on the Today programme saying maybe now is the time to ditch GCSEs altogether.

Maybe they will have to have more questions to choose from to cover most aspects of the syllabus but that might make the exam papers too cumbersome and long to read through.

For DS’s English Lit paper I think he is studying Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, various poems, An Inspector Calls and Macbeth. He has studied the first book and is working through the poetry section at the moment. Other schools will be studying it in a different order. So I assume they could be asked to answer questions on 3 out of the 4 sections. But not sure whether that can work with other subjects

DS1 is in Year 10 and doing gcse PE. He had chosen football, athletics and cricket so goodness knows how he is going to be assessed on those now.

I really think the impact on the current Y10 and Year 12 has been completely underestimated.

I've a y10.

What I think might be possible for some subjects (eg RE, Eng Lit) is to say the best 3/4 or 6/8 questions count across the 2 papers. That way, if you learned Macbeth remotely you might be less good at it, so if it is your worst question it can be disregarded. I think that would be 'fairer' as different schools/pupils will have such different home experiences this term.

My DD had just dropped a GCSE before all this. I think she might end up also losing Drama. And her English which she is pushing to get to a pass is now seeming further away. Her mental health was shaky and has nosedived, she is only managing 1hr of 'easy' (eg Seneca) work in a day.

That said, mental health is more important than exams. We were also already thinking DD should do a level 2 year at college even if she met the Level 3 criteria so hopefully fingers crossed it won't impact her future too much.

I have 2 Year 12s - I think this will massively effect them. The kids at the local private schools are continuing to have online classes - my kids and the kids at the local state schools are being handed a big pile of work every week to get on with themselves. Ds's form teacher's parting words were "don't email your teachers too much!" I have had to work hard to get him to email them at all!

It's going to create a bigger gap between that haves and the have nots - those that have very supportive parents and those that do not. The right environment at home will become absolutely cruicial to their success.

On a side note I think GCSEs are a waste of time. I think we need one set of public exams - kids should do maths and english throughout their school - obviously they'd take different subjects to different levels...but they should all continue to work on those basic skills.

mooboy But aren't the GCSEs the 'one set of public exams'? They are the exams that everyone does after all, and are the 'gateway' to different routes after then.