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

[StaffAssociationRepresentative]

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@noblegiraffe

I've calmed down a bit since last night

I’ve not. These are the people who are supposed to be ensuring that we return to school safely and in an orderly fashion and they’ve just confirmed once again that they are a bunch of shit-for-brains with literally no idea what goes on in schools and can’t even be bothered to ask.

Exactly how I felt on hearing this last night.

That wasn't me hip !

I'm sure they do usually do better in the real thing when it's a full paper mock compared to real exams, but I know ds would consistently get full marks on any lit or history A level question when sitting a single timed question "mock" within a lesson. Put together three questions, though, and a three hour paper and he dropped from A* to A.

Do, if a school has done loads of timed single essays which they try to claim as "mocks" - totally unfair.

DS's school sent out a letter at 1pm today to book an appointment for next Thursday . It goes into great detail about CAG awards and resits, and how to get CAGs but doesn't mention mocks at all!

Presumably it was already written but they did have time to add a bit.

lord knows what my school is doing.

Sorry meant Herc above.

I do think teachers need to watch what they say about unreliability of mocks.. yes they are unregulated etc but saying (as I have seen on Twitter) that they don't represent pupils' ability or that this year an easier/harder mock was given to motivate/boost/put fear of God into pupils, this is not going to help the trust of others in us as teachers.

The email today from our SLT was just oozing with frustration about this last minute made up decision. They've had to write a last minute letter to all of year 13 and their parents confirming that results day will be going ahead as planned tomorrow and we will be confirming whether individuals are eligible to appeal as soon as we have details of the process. They've really been dropped in the shit.

Ofqual have made up a new word:

However, we understand why the government has wanted to provide some additional assurance for students, by confirming that evidence from valid mock exams can be considered as part of an appeal. We are working urgently to operationalise this as fairly as possible and to determine what standards of evidence will be required for the appeal. We will provide more detail early next week

Jon Richardson from Reach was busy tweeting last night that teachers aren't trustable. So that's good.

Bit off topic but video here going through American data on children in terms of levels of infection, serious illness and ability to transmit

That message from Ofqual screams of subtext.

“We have no idea why the government have taken this idiotic approach. We had no idea it was coming either and have been totally dropped in it. We’ve been left to make it work and now expect to be working all hours including this weekend to come up with something even remotely feasible. Fingers crossed, eh?”

What is a valid mock exam? One that’s done in the hall? One where the paper wasn’t available on the internet?

Who or what is Reach? I only know one Jon Richardson!

noblegiraffe

It does sound like its another these yr groups will be back in schools by + date announcement.

I am assuming we are still not supposed to tell them what their CAGs were

After results day they can request them.

Noble I've only calmed down about the mock grading thing because it changes so little. In reality we know students don't do worse than their mock in the exam. Few teachers will have CAG below a mock grade (sorry piggy your girl is an outlier!).

Suddenly today we are every parents' best friend ! They want our CAGs because we are not nasty, mean, feckless and horrible.

I know that it won’t change grades, Herc, but I keep thinking of new ways to be annoyed.

Currently its thinking of the poor kids on Thurs who will want to appeal their result but whose teachers won’t be able to say if their mock result will count as valid, so they’ll spend the weekend panicking while waiting to hear from Ofqual. And the uncertainty over uni places as a result.

FFS-this is a typical Tory fuck up. Release some ‘shattering’ news late at night with absolutely no clarification of any detail and leave thousands of people worrying for a week about what it means and how it will affect them and leaving schools as the only point of contact for answering angry parents’ questions.

You can almost hear some tossers on a Zoom meeting now all, all hot and bothered, trying to decide what might constitute ‘valid’.

It's contemptuous treatment of teachers and students, and that's what makes me angry. The playing field isn't level, and we all know it, but this does nothing to solve that problem. What it does is put more vagueness and uncertainty into a year which was already vague and uncertain.

Important for Y13 teachers to fill out Teacher Tapp today, they are asking what you did for A-level mocks (e.g. full past paper, partial spec)

It will help Ofqual decide what counts as valid, I’m sure, as Becky Allen of Teacher Tapp consulted with Ofqual on the statistical approach.

yep :done mine. My answer to how I marked them didn't really fit the options. What is Becky's subject? It's written as if marking and knowing grade boundaries are the same thing. I marked them accurately as I could to the mark scheme : that doesn't mean I was marking to a grade that I knew.

Do you mean Jon Hutchinson rather than Richardson?

He really did just chuck a bomb into edutwitter and run away.

Don’t think she was ever a teacher. I’m guessing she’d be a maths teacher though.

Oh I thought she was. I do think people who advise on education should have been teachers. I like her but sometimes she does show that she doesn't 'get' teaching.

So, now we have established it's not Richardson, who is Hutchinson?

She has been a teacher : 'an economist by training and a former secondary school teacher'