Grading year 11 and year 13 hell

[Alcesalces]

Anyone hate the current situation with TAGs? I feel sick about doing it. Our students have still sat exams so don't understand why they couldn't have sat proper external exams. I am marking papers so carefully. I'm having to ask staff who are examiners to look at so many answers because I've never been an examiner so haven't had that training. I hate the whole situation. I feel sorry for myself and for the kids.

I have 220 individual assessments to mark. I've done 136 so I now feel like I'm winning... but it's hard!!!
Luckily I do examine.

I hate all the TAG baskets hoops we are leaping through and on top of that we have reports for Years 10 and 12 to do!

I want to bill Edexcel and AQA for my time as I am doing their job

It's hell. Get my last batch of papers tomorrow. Then when the marking is done the real fun can begin!

Right there with you marking is now mostly done and we have done so much standardisation it's untrue.

Next week, pretty much all of my frees are taken up with QA meetings (I am assistant head of a large core faculty so there are a lot!). Then, the hideous data checking.

To top it off, I had two staff off last week and one is still off this coming week so loads of cover to sort.

I actually felt ill with it last week and broke down on a colleague (who was lovely thankfully!).

It's rubbish

@StaffRepFeistyClub

I hate all the TAG baskets hoops we are leaping through and on top of that we have reports for Years 10 and 12 to do!

I want to bill Edexcel and AQA for my time as I am doing their job

This. I can’t believe we’re still bloody paying the exam boards while we are literally doing their jobs. The exam materials they’ve provided have been pitiful.

I had to contact AQA this week with a query and they were absolute rubbish

The mental stress of it all is doing me in. I too cried on a colleague this week. I've also had to sort cover for absent colleagues in the last two weeks and arrange for all of their classes tests to be done and marked. I fell asleep at 6 on Fri and slept pretty much all day yesterday to recover from the last week!!

But yeah, wait until September to find out what arrangements are being made for Y10 and Y12... It's not like the exam boards/Ofqual are actually doing anything right now to prevent them from getting this info to us as soon as possible!

Pearson asked if schools wanted any of the 2020 papers they had already printed - for a charge of course!! I can't remember how much they wanted for each paper but I was outraged when the exams officer sent me the email.

The exam boards are absolutely taking the proverbial. They are racking up charges seeing the whole fiasco as a money making machine.

Time to open up the exam market for more competition in order to bring down prices and to improve customer services

You are not alone. I am so stressed about it and the constant moving of goalposts setting us up to take the flak.

I am so stressed about it too. I am also feeling the pressure from school to give the students endless opportunities to 'provide evidence' ie keep sitting assessments until they get the grade we want. Which I think is unethical and massively increases marking load.

I've done all my marking now so.just QA to do. Pleased with Y13 results.

Fairly pleased with Y11. I inherited the group and they are a tough bunch. In addition to lockdown disruption, they also had a term of disrupted teaching in Y10 so by the time I got them in Y11, they had more gaps than most and were very demotivated. They have been hard, hard work but over 50% have at least one grade 4 and quite a few have 44 or above. So, overall, not bad going.

I'm so tired now though!

Still going. I've moderated 80 scripted this week in addition to my own marking. 54 more gcse and 12 a level to come this week.

I was wondering if your could help?

I am looking for a UK Secondary School Assessment Calendar.

To be specific, I am trying to source the typical dates of exams each term. (I know things have been different this year, but a typical calendar would be great)

Any help would be appreciated. Thanks.

There's no such thing. Schools do their public exams to a common calendar, but that's all.

I've been moderating with teachers from other schools (one person dept) and found the other teachers mark way more generously than me. I'm not sure what to do with this information. I think my way of marking is correct. I've pored over the exam board training videos and the kids tend to get the marks I expect in exams. But it's really thrown me that it seems like kids in other schools are getting an easier ride. I know if my Head found out he'd want me to drastically up all my grades accordingly..

@salohcin98 - you can get the external exam calendars from the exam board websites, but other than that there’s no such thing as a ‘Secondary school assessment calendar’; all schools have their own.

@MrsHamlet

There's no such thing. Schools do their public exams to a common calendar, but that's all.

Yes, I know about the external exam period and impact of Covid this year. I think being a little more specific would help, so here we go.

I would like to know when these exams would be typically timetables int the school calendar:

Year 10 (midterm exam? End of term exam?
Year 11 (midterm exam? End of term exam? Mock exam?
Year 12 (midterm exam? End of term exam? Mock exam following the old AS staged route)
Year 13 (midterm exam? End of term exam? Mock exam following the old A2 staged route)

Thanks again for your feedback; it is incredibly helpful.

Best.

It will vary from school to school.

There is no ‘typical’. You need the school calendar for whichever school you’re interested in.

Yes, I don't know why you asked again really? It is different in every school. The only thing the same is the external exams. It even varies between subjects in some schools.

@GrammarTeacher - I suspect she’s asked because she wants to use it to complain to a school.

Cynical? Moi?