The Fifteenth Republic - A Level and GCSE Results storm coming!

[StaffAssociationRepresentative]

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Conspiracy theory time :

It is in the government's interests to make this all appear a shambles. Some fairly powerful figures in politics and education, form Sir Kenneth Baker to the Local Schools network are calling for exams to be scrapped next year, too (because, let's face to the REALY disadvantaged year groups haven't gone through yet) and for the government to review forever the issue of high stakes terminal exams. if this year is made to appear so unreliable and so omnishambolic, people will be hollering for exams at all costs next year...

They are also trying to kill off coursework through the back door.

I am also not looking forward to mocks this year now when we will suddenly have even more pressure on moderation and 'robust' marking. Aargh.

For GCSE it'll be a shitshow. The Eng dept in our school use last year's exam. It doesn't take geniuses to find out content. So they all did brilliantly at the top end because they shared the content!

I moaned at my DS's school because, in their wisdom, they never did a Lit mock and, of all subjects, music, with his arrested replaced music teacher and the shitshow over the past few years of student results didn't do a mock!!

It does feel like they are saying 'the one thing we absolutely DON'T want to use is the CAG'

We're only allowed one mock exam slot because we can't take the hall out of action for a full series. English has 4 papers.
We never have a full paper lit mock (it's done in text chunks after they've read the text, and some people preteach the question). It's a clusterfuck of the highest order.

Same at DS's school mrsH

I am not so bothered that we didn't dot eh whole thing, as mocks should be representative. What bothers me more is two things:

Why one EARTH would mocks be a better arbiter than the CAGs?
COURSEWORK COURSEWORK COURSEWORK

I assume there will be even more pupils trying to play the system this year with mocks if the school uses past papers although as there weren’t any actual exams in the summer which past paper would be used? Or would it be better for schools not to use a valid form of mock to get round this issue if the same grading decision is made for next year.

Also, the kids this system will benefit least is the lower achievers. I don't frankly care whether all these grammar school and private school kids get 17 9s , instead of 8s (well, I do but perspective...) but surely a kids at grade 2/3/4 is more likely to have bombed a mock and made some progress since then, perhaps with intervention and been given a CAG of 4,which may have been moderated down to a 3. Arguably ,that's the correct grade, but this affects their life chances so much more.

Some schools don't even have proper systems for recording mocks anywhere either...

Seriously, were they suffering from heatstroke at Ofqual??

They have just benefited the 'sharp elbowed middle classes' even more!

The awaiting results threads on MN are ALIGHT!

You can now pay for the privilege of having your grades bettered..

As I often say to the kids, you're asking the wrong question. In this case, the right question is "who let that idiot be in charge?"

We never got sent DS's second lot of mock results because they were just before lockdown so I don't even know them!!

What an absolute mess. My heart goes out to all the young people affected by this panicked incompetence

could someone tell me what a CAG is please

Sorry primary Sen, can wax lyrical about SCERTS but no idea about secondary acronyms!

I also feel for the next cohorts.

So much more pressure over the next year?

I actually also feel sorry for the staff at the exam boards in all this. They got their exams dropped unceremoniously with no notice, had to scramble a system to collate data they'd never needed before, have spent weeks working on that data, and less than 12 hours before the first set is going out, they find out that quite possibly none of that matters either. Everyone involved in this at the pupil end had been treated with absolute contempt under the pretence that it's 'for the kids'

centre assessed grade @NeurotrashWarrior

This is the press release

www.gov.uk/government/news/triple-lock-for-students-ahead-of-a-level-and-gcse-results

Okay, so they get the moderated CAG. If they don't like it, they can appeal to the board, who will verify the mock using a process Ofqual are starting to invent today. And if they want they can sit in November. I don't know whether to laugh or cry.

Thanks, I understand more now!

Am I an outlier in preferring coursework?

I might get shouted at here but I liked coursework. I preferred controlled assessment because it was (meant to be) cheating proof (I was a moderator; some schools still cheated). But it is a different skill to exams and took the pressure off the end.
We still have coursework at A Level, and most students get on well with it because they're able to explore things they're interested in. If they choose the resit option this year, the coursework they've already done won't count - which is baffling to me. Not as baffling as recent announcements though

Nope!

I am livid that no system invented has credited the work students did (in many subjects!) in NEAs.

Sorry my nope was to neuro!

Why do we need a picture of Gavin looking like a sixth former on that press release???

Shocked? yes Surprised? No. I did predict yesterday on here that there would be some 11th hour panic decision so that Scotland students could not be allowed to perform way better than in England and Wales.

Did I expect this decision? No. But of course it's a last minute reaction. After all we didn't submit our estimated grades back in mid May THREE WHOLE MONTHS AGO!!!!! What the bloody hell have the powers that be been doing during this time??? They have had no exam conferences to run, no waiting for markers to send in samples, no moderation meetings, no waiting for scripts to be returned and marks to come in from examiners - nadda. All they had to do was to come up with a system to fairly moderate the estimated grades. It really does not take a genius to know that the only fair way to do this is to look at the school's performance subject by subject over recent years and use it as a benchmark (plus a couple of extra % to allow for exceptional circumstances this year).

So, they had three months. Then the day before the results are sent to schools they just make something up on the spot. Clearly they have NO idea how mocks are actually run. We use different grade boundaries in each school, some sit way before Christmas, some much later so wildly different amounts of the course have been examined, some use past papers, some are written by teachers (especially with new specs and very few past papers to go on). Some schools internally moderate, some schools have rogue members of staff within depts who are over generous in the mocks marking to make themselves look better than their colleagues..... I could go on and on, but secondary colleagues don't need to be told that mocks are NO way to fairly hand out actual results.

Utter and total mess. I feel so sorry for all A Level students - they have put up with enough this year.

What the fuck are they thinking!

Why didn’t we just input the mock grades and be done with it in the first place if that’s what they are going for. Bloody hell

flounces off

So we can pin it next to Gove on our dart board?
I've just had my first contact: "MrsHamlet, what the hell is going on with our exams?" Me: "I wish I knew! Don't panic!"

Sorry but am now having flashbacks to the hues and bloody hours of ranking spreadsheets and phone calls to the exam board.

What I really should have done is just asked each child what they wanted to get and input that.

@noideaatallreally I would put money on that fact that all those things HAVE happened and that the they at the exam boards knew no more of this than we did. The boards would have been following DfE directive whatever which has just been superseded by Gav and his knee jerk reaction.