Y10 and Y12....

[teachpaint]

If this mess isn’t over soon and we’re not back until September, does anyone have any predictions of what they think will happen to the pupils sitting GCSES/ A levels in 2021?

Some colleagues think we won’t be back until October and may be off again around Christmas, extending that holiday if there’s another winter peak.

Obviously no one knows anything, including my school, I’m just interested to hear what you all think will happen, if we’ll have another cancelled exam cohort or if they’ll somehow scrap elements of the course? I don’t see how that would work though and schools work through the course in different orders, at different rate?

Everyone’s already registered for the exams, they’re not new, just being shifted.

The problem with November is that it leaves a lot of kids milling around in uncertainty for longer. November results don’t come out till January.

Lowering grade boundaries though won't differentiate between a student who has had good access to teaching and resources and hasn't performed well, and a student that has done brilliantly on 75% of the paper but missed a lot of teaching because they only had a mobile phone for the work and was looking after their little brother whilst their lone parent mum was working as a nurse, or is in a house with domestic abuse, unless there is way to mark that can recognise the difference between those two situations.

Exams already don’t differentiate between kids who had a supply teacher or were ill and missed school in Y10 or had mental health issues or a terrible home life.

Exams already don’t differentiate between kids who had a supply teacher or were ill and missed school in Y10 or had mental health issues or a terrible home life.

I think this is crap too, but this situation will just massively exacerbate those differences, at least normally there is equal access to the lessons.

I know, but my point is that they haven’t made allowances in the past (bar special consideration for certain circumstances close to exam time which isn’t much), so it’s unlikely that they’ll do anything apart from say that it is up to schools to prepare students for exams and only theirs to administrate.

There is no measurable rubric to account for crap homelife, mental health issues, missing half of y10 etc. Therefore the exam boards have to ignore students circumstances. We know the disadvantage gap will be huge, probably for the next couple of years. Teachers will do all they can to close it.

Wouldn’t work to do a narrower curriculum for year 11 only - so reduced content

Then the exam is marked on the final year rather than the final 2 years?

There's no such thing as year 10 and year 11 content. The exam content is covered across the 2 years by the school as they see fit. Every school is different so cutting content will actively disadvantage some schools if they have already covered it.

I have a yr 12 at home, and whilst noble is right in that they're more motivated and have fewer subjects, we have only had 20 mins of online teaching so far in these last 2 weeks, across 3 A levels. Lots of work sheets being given, but left to get on with it themselves, because they are deemed "academic" enough to not need face to face teaching

That's just my moan about our school though.

On a broader note, DD is already worrying about the UCAS process, which in normal times their school would be beginning around now - they're meant to be assigned a staff member to mentor them through the application process. That's obviously not happening, bigger fish too fry and all.

And as already noted, different schools teach at different rates, so how could syllabi be reduced to account for this lost time?

What an awful time for our youngsters.

On a broader note, DD is already worrying about the UCAS process, which in normal times their school would be beginning around now

And who knows how the universities are going to come out of this with the loss of overseas students.

Im a TA (although I work in Year 2 so not much help in Secondary School) but I have a DS in Year 10. He is doing a huge amount of work at home but I’m not 100% convinced he is doing the right stuff. School have set loads of work but there is only so much actual teaching they can do. His school do 3 year GCSE’s so in that respect he has already done a large amount of the syllabus however in English they need to do Romeo and Juliet and they haven’t even started it yet.
However he is most worried about PE (appreciate that’s probably not high on most people’s list of priorities) because he has only been assessed on football and was doing Cricket/Athletics this summer term. He wants to do A level PE with a view to do something sport based so a good grade is quite important to him.

At the moment I’ve actually told him to not worry as much about geography/Spanish because he has no intention of taking them at A level and work extra hard on the sciences/maths and English where he is predicted good grades (7’s and 8’s). Probably the wrong thing to do but feel like I need to guide him a little bit.

Mum of a year 12 here and very worried.

Ds has Aspergers and anxiety and is struggling with the lack of routine, missing his friends and is over eating after losing a huge amount of weight over the last 2 years.

His subjects are Drama, photography and Media studies at A level.
Drama thankfully has been focusing on his set texts and his tutor is fantastic. Photography has been more of a support rather than setting work. Media studies is a mess and ds is very behind.

I appreciate that we have to deal with this situation as best we can but it’s tough when 2/3 of his subjects are largely practical.

He got grade 9’s in photography and drama and didn’t do media at GCSE. His other grades were more modest but he’s currently looking at a grade D at A level which is nowhere near enough for university.

Whilst I feel for all pupils, year 12 are really taking the hit too.