Why are some schools setting extra GCSE work for Y11?

[noblegiraffe]

I don’t mean A-level prep, or providing ongoing revision in case of September resits.

I mean setting and marking work giving pupils the impression that it can be used towards improving predicted grades.

There’s no way that the exam boards will look at it is there? It would be totally unfair.

So why are they wasting kids and teachers’ time?

Several places. Will try to find.

If they do not believe the correct process has been followed in their case they will be able to appeal on that basis.

DfE

The guidance will need to be really comprehensive : agreed. And I'm not holding my breath that anyone will understand it!

DS has been sent home with two feet of printouts of GCSE questions to complete. Originally we were told they’d be getting lessons on Zoom, which were then cancelled.

He sat in front of them for hours at a time achieving virtually nothing until we decided to let him do his own thing on weekdays and do school work on the weekend when DH and I would be available to supervise and teach constantly. There’s been no further communication from his teachers, one phone call from admin staff saying “how’s it going?”. I asked whether any of this work would actually affect his grades, and admin staff got a message to his TA (temporarily forgotten what the secondary school title is) who asked teachers. Reply by email was “until date of submission all work completed will be taken into account, it is very much worth DS continuing with the work given.”

I tend not to trust the school’s judgement on this, but can only go with what we’ve been told, so GCSE past papers it is all weekend. He missed half his mocks for MH reasons so this is his only chance to get passing grades in some subjects, however slim.

Realistically I guess it’s resits in September, but where? Will his allocated Sixth form let him in if he’s not got the grades yet? Will they let him in late in ?November if he gets the grades then?

Sooo, in the end this will all boil down to “accurate” record keeping. Interesting times.

It's certainly sounds like it's going to be pretty hard work for the teachers.

Ds's minimum expected grades are all 7s and 8s, he's had those for years, FFT I think. His November mocks ranged from 9s to a 5. Ds did not really revise for his mocks, more because of his ASD rather than laziness. All his teachers are very aware of his difficulties this year though. Home is his safe space away from the overwhelming environment of school so it's hard bringing academic work into this environment.

He is so rigid in his behaviour and understanding. Once the head told him in assembly that no more work was needed, that was him done. Year 11 had not been easy and that was even before there was a worldwide pandemic. I just hope the lack of work now does not leave him disadvantaged, talk of some schools doing assessments whilst they are at home is confusing. If I'm honest though all we wanted this academic year was for him to get through his exams with his mental health intact, so I'll keep my fingers crossed his grades will be okay.

Piggy yes the email from school said the same thing about appeals and correct procedures.

I’ve got one student whose predicted grades are 9s across the board but who has suffered such significant and steadily worsening MH issues this year that I doubt we could have got them in through the door of a real exam.
I suppose pragmatically we predict on the January mocks. Those students who know they could have done much better and want to prove it , have to take the resit.

We have already had parents of pupils who are in this position email teachers directly to ‘make their case’ and we’ve had to deflect it all to SLT.

I worried that if we ‘over predict’ for those pupils we know from experience are likely to have done much better than their mock suggests , the exam board will pick up on that and downgrade all our predictions.

Our other problem is that the school is new, and its first batch of GCSE results were catastrophic. They’ve implemented some fairly drastic interventions in the last two years but I think I read that schools’ predictions will be benchmarked against their previous years’ outcomes, in which case we really are screwed.

What we know is
GCSE grades will be issued end of July
Schools will send predicted grades to the DfE
Schools will be told how to predict these grades
Instructions on how to predict these grades has not yet been issued.

Conclusion: The DfE will not be routinely looking at evidence that the school submits in support of grades, only the grades that have been provided. There won’t be enough time to do any more than this, and the assumption will be that schools have followed the guidance in providing them.

There may be some sort of sampling process, or requests for evidence should a school look like they’re taking the piss. It’ll be in a school’s best interests not to take the piss.

I will be really shocked if exam boards look at mock results. They have no way of knowing what the quality or consistency of marking is. How do you differentiate between schools that set 1 history paper for the last set of mocks vs schools like mine that set all 4? What about schools that only did Walking Talking Mocks? Or the difference between schools that did their last set of mocks in November and schools like mine that did them 3 weeks ago?

I expect the guidance is going to be wishy washy bullshit. I’ve already seen emails posted by other history teachers online from exam boards saying they aren’t going to be moderating or even asking for NEA marks for A Level history, so the idea that they will look at mock exam results for GCSE seems a bit far-fetched.

Cross posted with noble.

wishy washy bullshit

I’m wondering what’s taking so long for the guidance to come out.

I’m guessing that the DfE have a rough idea of what they will expect each school to get (based on KS2 data, school’s progress 8, last year’s data), that they will check against predictions.

Will they give this to schools in advance of them submitting predicted grades and tell them to make sure it fits?

It would save the DfE a lot of work if they did.

Why so long for guidance? Was thinking the same myself. But, I suspect it's because it isn't such a priority.

Boris only just told people about the 80% portal. He took over a week before the self employed were addressed.

I guess they realise it's quite tricky to get something that's actually 'fair'.

DS (yr11) is being set a lot of work. A full English lesson and maths lesson each day plus weekly work for all other subjects (some equivalent of a weeks worth of whole lessons).

I would say he is doing about half of it under duress. At the moment we are yelling him to do it as we don’t know how his marks will be calculated.

When we do know that nothing else will count we will make him keep in the loop with A level subjects but that is it.

He had November and early March mocks. Thankfully he performed well in both sets in his A level subjects so I hope it is fairly easy to predict those grades for him.

What concerns me is that he, like many others, had done some revision for those mocks but very little compared to what he would have done for the real exams. He would likely have secured the higher grades where currently he was borderline.

Will there be any recognition of the fact what they could get last month is quite different to what they would likely get in two months time with an awful lot more work?? Certainly DS has not performed at the same level as he would have done.

When teachers know what onearth is happening, please let us know!!

The other added difficulty will bed all the fraught distance meetings and discussions at schools about all of this. That will be a nightmare. Nonetheless, I hope schools don't just let one person predict results on behalf if us all.

Will there be any recognition of the fact what they could get last month is quite different to what they would likely get in two months time with an awful lot more work??

Yes. Schools do not expect mock grades to be the same as actual grades.

Thanks @noblegiraffe that is comforting.

I guess they realise it's quite tricky to get something that's actually 'fair'.

It is impossible to get something that's actually 'fair' in these circumstances. Exams themselves aren't truly fair anyway, I suppose. But any other system is inherently less fair than that. There will be huge variation in the quality of teacher assessment and any statistical analysis is only accurate for a group rather than individuals. Even then it is highly dependent on the quality of prior attainment data - and we all know how variable ks2 data can be. If benchmarked against previous school performance it cannot take in to account any improvement (or deterioration) which has happened over the last year or so.

I suspect that a significant number will want to take their exams in the autumn. Especially a level students who don't get the grades for their university places. Logistically that will be hard to manage in some respects, but there is a whole timetable already done, exams already prepared and examiners already contracted.

Incidentally, if any teachers are setting bridging work to A-level for their kids and want to add it to this thread, that would be really helpful.

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/secondary/3863982-Bridging-the-gap-to-A-level-work-for-current-Y11

Thanks for that noble. Ds's maths teacher is the only one that has offered some bridging worksheets so we don't have much.

I've not encouraged him to do anything yet (because he's bloody hard work!) and he has months to go before sixth form but it will be good to get some resources together. Will have a look at the thread.

Because we all know what this government is like. We all know that they don't trust teacher assessment so it'll be to support the grades they are sending off when they query them

It's a tough one. DD had been told to do some bridging work for a level but not to bother with gcse stuff now.
Their school is relatively new and gcse results are improving year on year. This would have been their best year yet. I hope the dfe don't penalise based on other years results.