The Fifty-Sixth Republic - Who is up for a game of TAG?

[StaffRepFeistyClub]

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Hello all. I lurk a lot but rarely post. Tha k you all for being here and being voices of sanity in the madness! I'm really stressed right now as just found out our English dept are telling the Yr11 kids their exam questions. Cue all my kids demanding them from me. I feel completely blindsided by this and annoyed that there hasn't been a whole discussion on it. The argument was 'other schools are doing it so it wouldn't be fair not to'. Are your schools sharing GCSE questions with students? I saw rules post, what a nightmare! The whole thing is descending into such a farce!

Valancy, we had mocks straight after Easter & didn't tell the kids the Qs. They've done one timed Lit essay where I released the Q to them in advance over a weekend (not that many of them seemed to look at it ), with one more to go. I'll release that one in advance, too.

@ValancyRedfern Yes, our students know the questions for their assessments. I’m an a English teacher so they know their exact essay titles. Maths for instance, have provided the exact topics to revise for each assessment.

Questions were released just before we broke up for Easter so students could revise. They are allowed to take into the assessment one side of A4 notes which will be handed in along side either assessment.

*their

I’d like to be on the nailing it bench. I’m aiming for the ‘taking no shit’ bench. It’s going to ruffle some feathers, but hopefully I’ll have the support of at least some of the people above me.

One thing I can say for our school is that there is complete parity across all departments.

I think I’m under the bench keeping my head down hoping no one spots I’m winging it.

We’ve given the kids titles for assessments (like “statistics”) but not questions. That would be mad in maths. No idea what other departments are doing. My school is very keen to emphasise that these are assessments not exams so in classrooms during lesson times. This has led to some kids not treating them particularly seriously even though they basically are their GCSEs/A-levels.

My DD gets told topics not questions. Is it too much to hope that schools telling them exactly what will be in the exam will mark in that knowledge, whilst schools being more general will mark taking that into account??

Wow. I think I need to tell my kids the exam questions too then. I had no idea this was happening.

What a mess! Poor children and poor GSCE/A Level teachers.

Jan schools are all giving different questions too, so some schools will be giving their students easier assessments than yours and some harder. Each school will have to look at the results that their own cohort has got and try to grade them in a way that won't look suspicious compared to previous years. If a school gets loads of high results because they told the kids the questions or set easier assessments, they're going to have to come up with higher grade boundaries to account for it (or potentially fall foul of exam board moderation)

It will be inconsistent between schools but you can't tell whether a school will be giving better/harsher grades based on how they are running the assessments. It's what they do with the results that will matter.

Hi, been reading but not much to contribute as I am at the smaller person end of education and in quite an affluent area. That doesn’t mean we don’t have our challenges (an awful lot of them have completely lost the ability to get along with each other) but I do feel relatively lucky.
Any comment I make about A levels would be from a parent pov so not really helpful. It all boils down to oh fuck, please let DS just get to the Uni he has an offer from! anyway, but I do trust his teachers. I am ridiculously sad about him finishing his school career in a matter of weeks - not with a bang but a whimper. But hey, Big Girl Pants on

Small Saucepuppy came back off lead several times this morning, so that’s a triumph. Hope all is well with your Lab, MrsHerc

We have put all these assessments on a shared document and somewhere lurking is the one they will actually do. Except for in my subject because there only is one past paper. As I do keep telling SLT form my shit stirring bench. SLT then went and took all the 2020 papers off even though everything is on the exam board websites anyway.

Our nailed it bench is outside the men's toilets. obviously. You also have to pass a science A Level before you can sit on it.

Amusingly, school have just announced a kind of pat on the head , come and join SLT for 25p extra role which everyone in the entire school knows will go to a female member of staff so they can say they have done something. The resident male chauvinist has set up and is leading a sexual harassment and equality working party. Last I heard it was an entirely secret group with one woman and three men on it.

We were told not to. They're doing paper 2 Lang so the questions are predictable, and poetry.
With the poems we've chosen two questions where the same poems fit and told them to revise those poems.
someone set the questions as cover this week though and hod was cross but let it slide. How is that right?

“but let it slide”?????

I feel very privileged that my DD is Y11 not Y13.....

Yes because dealing with it would be work

Does anyone else keep being told 'because this is what they are doing in every other school'?

Yes. At least twice a day.

Thanks for the responses re EYFS. I'm finding it hard to judge because my experience is secondary. I'll ask if there's any plans for parents evening this year and if not a phone call. He doesn't read/write when I know some of his peers do but not sure if that's "normal". Give me teens any day!

We're not getting the "this is what every school is doing" line. Instead SLT are very aware all schools are different. Instead they are hell bent on using 18/19 data.

I'm feeling quite worried for my yr11 and yr13. Year 11 has 'tests' over the next few weeks. There are more papers than the usual gcse papers (3 for each science subject). Yet there has been no information of which areas are on each paper, most definitely not specific questions. She was assured last term that some areas were going to be cut out but was sent the topic areas before Easter and nothing had been cut out. We've emailed the school, to clarify and had no response. The difference between schools is astounding and worrying.

Yr 13 is at a large 6th form college. The kids have only been in every other week since last March. This term for the first time they are in every week. Mocks didn't happen due to lockdown and so are happening in a few weeks, but no study leave. During lockdown classes were combined, so there were about 100 students in her maths live lessons. My dd has had a few mental health issues which have lead to lack of motivation. She now is unlikely to get the results she is capable of. The teachers don't really know her as they haven't been face to face much. It all seems very unfair.

However, lonely, your DD isn’t competing against pupils from other schools for grades like she would in national exams. She is competing against students in her college who are all in the same boat re live lessons etc.

The moderation will be checking that schools are awarding the grades they should roughly be awarding based on past school performance, not based on current school performance which may well be shit compared to other schools in the area who had kids in all the time Sept-Dec/better live provision.

Our y13 are doing a very slimmed down assessment. One of them said to me this week that she wishes they could've done the exams because she'll never know what she couldn't got and she'll never be able to show me.
She's going to be the first in her family to go to uni, and she's doing English. I'm so proud of her already but I know what she means. I've taught her for four years and she's come on from being a little shy thing to getting a grade 6 (still think she was robbed) to looking at an A.

Thanks noble yes, I think that’s what I was trying to say.