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

[StaffAssociationRepresentative]

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That Glasgow school (nearly) article seems to imply (perhaps wrongly) that the local health board checked that none of the students who'd been asked to isolate turned up at school today. This is the kind of local partnership working we're going to need...

Also, although the cluster has happened before the school returned, there could still potentially be other students transmitting it if it's in the community, couldn't there?

Yes, it sounds like a proper cluster. The can't ALL be from the same family.

Be interesting to know how connected the kids are to each other.

Yes if over 11 they should have been SD. Maybe they were singing.
Very few secondary will have been SD so will already be clusters when going back.
Tbh this is why clarity that they can all spread it is so important.
There could be a lot in Scottish and Welsh primaries as under 11 dont have to SD
Lots of countries now at masks even outside!
France/italy i think/spain and parts of usa

The short answer questions In English are easy to get "right" in terms of marking. What gets 6 is definitely different from what gets 8. It's the long questions where it gets hard.

So, teenagers can catch it, can spread to other teenagers, so obviously can spread to staff (and teenagers who have not been hanging out with them breaking guidelines).
All things that Them 4 Us said are impossible, surely? How can they not need masks, at minimum?

First day back with children done. I am so tired!

I managed distancing alright but still felt so dirty when I came home despite the constant handwashing. Staff in the infants found distancing impossible.

No masks.

So tired.

I don't think it had anything to do with normal classroom practice, piggy. I think it had something to do with them trying to see how well the system worked.

In the school district near a relative of mine in Georgia, USA, 900 high school students and 42 staff members have been quarantined after testing positive after just 6 days back in school.

Getting fed up of reading Nick Gibb's quote about student's grades 'only' being different by one grade. OK, I understand the stats blah blah, but at A Level 'only' one grade is a lot! At GCSE the only place where 'only' one grade really matters is 4 and 3, let's face it, but at A Level , a student missing out by 'only' one grade in even one subject could mean missing uni places. . there are, after al, Us aside, only 6 grades to pick from. Every year this , of course, happens to some students but no one come son and says 'oh never mind, some people only missed their predictions by one grade'.

I wish they would watch their language sometimes and reflect.

Nearly the weekend Dolly . It's going to be a long term. (worn out instead of confused).

This hasn't had much coverage!
www.tes.com/news/coronavirus-schools-will-abandon-igcses-because-grading

It seems surreal that some of you are back at school after so so long.

That MK nursery with that outbreak on the news saying they had to collect the data on test results themselves. 🙄

@Piggywaspushed

I think exams officers must be forming orderly queues today to throw themselves off the nearest viaduct...

Do feel a bit like that - Lots of wine consumed tonight! Some of the outcome of standardising small cohorts is just so unfair to the individuals affected. Eg we have a subject with 9 entries, 8 grades are left as our CAG, the 9th is moved down by 3 grades... If we were a bit over-generous then why on earth not move down 3 students by 1 grade rather than all the effect on 1 poor individual... Another subject 3 moved up a grade, 3 moved down - what harm would have done overall to just leave everyone as the CAG?

Good grief!

There was an article on Schoolsweek about how small subjects would benefit : Latin, MFL, Greek... oh, I wonder which schools that might dominate in!

This seems apt on Twitter!

*Here’s what makes this whole situation even more unacceptable:

In 2018, Ofsted acknowledged that internal data was nonsense and said they won’t scrutinise it.

But now it can be used to give kids a GCSE grade?*

www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/news/a-level-results-university-chiefs-in-urgent-talks-with-ministers-to-stem-exam-confusion-j0zdc9lvj

Can anyone read this-I can’t and want to know what it says!!?

Not sure I’ll be sleeping much tonight

The 3 moved up, 3 moved down is really bizarre!

Scary one in Guardian which you can read:

www.theguardian.com/education/2020/aug/12/shock-and-despair-as-headteachers-in-england-get-first-sight-of-downgraded-a-levels

Am I the only one feeling totally overdone by the whole process.
Normally I would be setting my alarm for a 5:45 am get up to log oNto eAQA for 6 am. Even though they have now shifted times until 8 am I am feeling like what is the point, no idea if the grades allocated will reflect what we sent off

That's outrageous tadge
Hopefully now it's been moved to LAs should be better??

MK has now entered top 20 for cases.

@Rosieposy4 I've just reset my ocr password but I'm less inclined to check than I was last year when I was in the back of beyond on holiday. I feel discombobulated.
@Piggywaspushed the Guardian article is horrifying. More so if you're a student in one of those schools.

That doesn’t surprise me tadge I believe the government (and I’m sure this will surprise you) has paid private companies to do the pillar 2 testing rather than use existing nhs labs.

With a nationalised health service we ought to have an advantage here.

The comments trickling out from Headteachers seem to suggest that the algorithm is potentially a lot more flawed than I was expecting. I must admit, I thought it would be imperfect but the best solution to a really difficult problem. With so much talk of really large adjustments and schools with their lowest ever results, something appears to have gone wrong somewhere. I wonder if their formula is trying to offset grade inflation in small cohorts and subjects by lowering grades elsewhere? That would be very unfair if it turns out to be true.

Hmmm.

It certainly is interesting that it appears to be UCAS that rang the alarm.

Nearly a fifth of our grades have been standardised to below their mock grade....
And we didn't think our mocks were particularly optimistic!

So is the reason they had a policy shift yesterday not because they were following Scotland, but because something has gone much more wrong with the algorithm than they thought?