[Closed] Exams and University entrance,with no Exams

We don't know.......

I put a longer answer in the will school be going back thread.

Safe to say there is still a lot of unknown but stuff is already happening.

There are going to be exams in the autumn for those who don't get the grade they need from the centre assessment process. The unis are then free to decide what to do with those grades - look for my other answer for a bit more clarification.

The kids who are going to miss out are the ones like I was back in the day - lazy but quite bright arses who were planning on pulling it out of the bag at the 12th hour.

It will be the mother of all buyers markets. It is still possible to apply for unis with courses that have places left as the final decision date has been pushed back to 18th June. If you are registered on UCAS you are also still able to pick up stuff in clearing. I would heavily warn that you need to be careful however - I suspect students will be getting into some great courses on crappy grades and having not experienced the exam season. That's half the battle. That will not make the courses any easier so getting on to a course that is beyond you will still be beyond you. You could be thousands in the hole with nothing to show for it in 12 months time.

Just read your reply on the other thread, its going to be toys out of prams for a lot of parnts hoping their kid will go to university and a lot of kids not going or not getting the course they want.

It's also far from clear that the academic year will kick off as normal in September. It seems quite likely that we will not run face-to-face teaching in semester 1 this year. There are also mutterings about two intakes- September and January. Big uncertainties still to resolve.

My son is Y13, but accepted an unconditional offer in February so is a jammy sod, but is also one of those who shrugged at mocks expecting to knuckle down for a few weeks at the end, so likely to get downgraded for that. No biggie he says, the sole point of A levels is to get you in the door at Uni, and he's in. His mates are all a bit anxious about how mean the recommendations from schools to exam boards will be, or how overgenerous they might be and then get a big haircut in the moderation process. All a bit wait and see, the biggest question being whether Unis will bother with a new intake if they can't do it face to face.

His mates are all a bit anxious about how mean the recommendations from schools to exam boards will be, or how overgenerous they might be and then get a big haircut in the moderation process. All a bit wait and see

The analogy I would use is two friends running away from a lion and one saying to the other 'it's no good, we'll never out run it' and the other turning to him and saying 'I'm not trying to outrun it, I'm trying to outrun you!'.

They are using the past performance of the school and a national scaling so by and large each school will end up with broadly the same overall grades as they did in each subject as the average of the last few years' results. The crucial bit (and this is the bit the kids have not clocked as far I can tell) is that schools are being asked to rank order the students in each subject as well as give them a grade. So if say 10 get a B grade for Geography at one school you will be rated the 1st to 10th best B from your school. If your friend was 9th best B and you were 10th and overall the school were a bit generous (teachers always are - UCAS predictions are 1.5 grades inflated on average over 3 subjects) you get the chop first. Pupils are unable to influence the teacher's rank ordering by generating any new work but the savvy ones will be making sure their teachers have nice easy access to all their (good) past essays. The ones not getting up till 2 and playing xbox all day....not so much.

Head of Sixth Form here.
Only a few previous comments but the ones that stand out are:

1) Convert: The kids who are going to miss out are the ones like I was back in the day – lazy but quite bright arses who were planning on pulling it out of the bag at the 12th hour.

This will most definitely be the case due to grades being heavily evidence based due to expected litigation/appeals. Smart arses will have to prove it in Autumn exams - sorry.

2) DPFR: Big uncertainties still to resolve - we just don't know.

Universities are losing money and this is a period of intense financial pressure to get bums on seats, which leads to..

3) Midlifecrashes: big haircut in the moderation process.

Grades are going to have to be sent in by end of May and then haircut, there will be tears and joy as usual, OFQUAL will not allow a huge spike in grade inflation, hence the move from July results to normal August dates.

All I know is I am under immense pressure to award very fairly with data that has been shared with parents over the last two years and matter of public record within the school.

I worry like Convert that students will get on courses due to supply and demand and be very rusty/weak, leading to first year drop outs.

If you have a year 13 kid - they will get to Uni - most probably the one they want to , spend 90% of your mental worry and will they actually hack the course and get employment from it.

Good luck all.

We have one Yr 13 and one Yr 11 in the household so double joy! Both have pretty much been totally cut adrift from lessons and tuition (slighty less so for the one doing A levels). Schools and colleges are rightly / wrongly concentrating on the younger kids - and talking to parents from other schools this seems pretty widespread. It was a very marked shift in attitude as up until a week before closure they were madly preparing kids for revise at home and exams still might happen.

Feel very sorry for the kids as they just had the rug pulled out after years of pressure and buildup - those first few weeks at home were pretty delicate and I'd imagine there will be some mental and motivational issues popping up for some in the coming year.

I think the one going gcse to A levels will be OK but we somehow need to get him studying again before September.

The A-level to degree one coasted one of his mocks so a bit more touch and go. If need be he'll be doing exams in Autumn and then working and bike racing for a year (degrees are too expensive to be taking the second choice / unconditional bail out option).

They are using the past performance of the school and a national scaling so by and large each school will end up with broadly the same overall grades as they did in each subject as the average of the last few years’ results. The crucial bit (and this is the bit the kids have not clocked as far I can tell) is that schools are being asked to rank order the students in each subject as well as give them a grade.

So actually the grades don't mean much. What matters as ever is the rank order. The grades will then be set by the board based on the gcse results of the cohort and the centres past exam performance

We have one Yr 13 and one Yr 11 in the household so double joy! Both have pretty much been totally cut adrift from lessons and tuition (slighty less so for the one doing A levels). Schools and colleges are rightly / wrongly concentrating on the younger kids – and talking to parents from other schools this seems pretty widespread. It was a very marked shift in attitude as up until a week before closure they were madly preparing kids for revise at home and exams still might happen.

Firstly I can't believe how time flies. I hope it all pans out OK. I'm sure it will. I think people aren't aware of how many University places are filled with fee paying foreign nationals. I believe aeronautical Engineering at Imperial is 30 Uk funded places and 90 unfunded for over seas. Hence the announcement of more places and getting some research money out quick

I was shocked when i got the email saying that we didn't need to keep pressing the Uppers for work. Luckily I had made videos to cover the whole course so my conscience is clear and that I have played fair by the students. The uppers thing is a tricky business and i understand what happened. But it was still a shock

In other news Jack has taken up mountain biking again. He is currently om my sisters rigid 1990 Orange with commuter tyres. I have build up an old frame with the bits off my old FS (with less silly handle bars) and that is boxed and should be with him by the end of the week

Scottish system here.

I've taken all my exam candidates and with discussion ranked them. We might usually do this on a scale of 1-9; 1,2 A 3,4 B 5/6 C 7/8 D 9NA but we've now been asked to get them into even smaller bands 1-19 (17,18,19 are the old 9 No Award) some of these are 2% in size. Once in new band they will be ranked so you may be second best in band 13. THis was a right pita. So we have ranking for pupils based on evidence then we applied a "what does your gut tell you" algorithm which only moved a couple in 60+. I am now waiting for SQA to send data for past 3 years so we can compare present to past. I'd guess SQA will use a national set of data to set grades then hopefully have some clever person write a script that will point out if schools are outside their normal grades.
As far as we know there are NO plans for exams in August but there is going to be an appeals process, which will be an absolute mess.

Given the lack of overseas students for the foreseeable, won't the unis be fighting over domestic students for the next year or so? So even a slightly disappointing predicted grading from the school might not matter all that much?

I work for a Uni in research so not directly involved in the lecturing side, but am aware of our plans - which at the moment are to create viable plans for multiple options so we can be flexible and adapt as the situation does. These range, as mentioned by others, from the extremes of 'business as usual' with physical distancing to not re-starting the academic year until January 2021 (or even later). As you can imagine there is a huge amount of work involved in planning for every eventuality and therefore please don't think the Universities (or at least the lecturing and professional staff students' are actually in contact with) aren't "bothered".

One thing that is apparent is the likelihood to push a greater proportion of University grading to continuous assessment for learning outcomes over examination. So those students who do well at exams might be disadvantaged in the 'new normal' University, but those who have done well in evidenced continuous assessments at A-level or Highers this year should continue to do well.

Every Uni and Department within the Uni has a different make-up of International, EU and UK fee paying (or through Gov subsidy if a Scottish student at a Scottish Uni). For example, in my Department our undergraduate intake is predominantly UK and we won't change our intake this year because we are at capacity for space (lab space, specialist PC workspace and field trips - noting we expect for an intake now that in the next 3 years of undergraduate study we need to plan for these things.) Other Departments are different. In particular the make-up of teaching staff may be very different this coming year to last, as several Unis and certain Departments (typically social sciences, humanities, and arts) are hemorrhaging staff on fixed-term contracts to cut their costs, just to have the Uni survive the cash flow issues they have. Also the way that some courses are taught will have to be significantly different to how they have traditionally (particularly sciences that use lab space and hands-on teaching like engineering or field work in geoscience). It's a very steep learning curve and if anything, for the Universities that brand themselves on outcomes, they need to at least present the impression that their learning outcomes haven't dropped and therefore, in some circumstances I can see Department heads actually wanting to cut student numbers to maintain quality teaching and reputation. This can only happen if the Government agrees to pay the Unis for UK research which is currently funded (subsidised from one part of the business to the other) through teaching incomes.

HM Government has today stated that uni,s that do online teaching should still charge tuition fees even if the students dont attend a uni in person, so its going to be like the open university for a lot of students, with expensive prime location buildings being empty,very reduced freshers weeks, student union stuff, sporting and club activities, with the resultant loss of staff.