[Closed] GCSE’s & A-levels - clear as mud?

No exams... They've said it's unfair given how much class time they're guaranteed to miss.

Grades will be based on a combination of mock results, and teachers' recommendations, just as they were last year I suspect.

As Head of Year 11 my message will be something like 'To be honest we don't know what's happening yet. The only positive thing you can do at the moment is attend your online lessons and work hard. Whatever happens with the exams in the end, time spent productively now will pay off whether that's due to teachers awarding grades based on your performance during lessons and assessments or if exams go ahead in some form anyway'.

EDIT. A bit cagey I admit, but I'm worried about the language used in tonight's announcement...

Humph. Bit annoyed. Son has done loads of work towards his prelims, all for nowt.
Knew I should have queried with his German teacher why she only had him down for an 8 in German

Ho hum

No exams

That was quite carefully not said.

Edit - BBC saying "While Mr Johnson said end-of-year exams would not take place as normal in the summer, he said alternative arrangements would be announced separately."

He said Gavin Williamson would be looking at alternative arrangements.

Could well be some sort of raffle, although he'd probably **** that up too.

Double whammy in our house. Daughter was due to do GCSES and son due to do his A levels.
Daughter did at least get to do her mocks before Christmas.

My daughter is absolutely distraught. She is in her last year of A levels and has effectively had two academic years disrupted, and she's smart enough to know she is just not getting the education she should be at this point, and it's possible effect on her higher education. She is also worried about the grades awarded if there are no exams, as she saw a lot of her friends from the year above suffer from the down grading of marks ( due to the post code lottery) and not get into their first second or even third choice Uni's. I know some students had their marks adjusted, but it was too late for many, and her current 6 form is full of last years students hoping to improve their grades and get into their uni of choice. I really do feel for them all, they should be working hard and playing hard as I was back in the day, but this current lot are just working hard ( for lord knows what) and can't even sneak into the pub for a beer or two.

Eldest should be doing mock A levels next week. He's pretty chilled about it, waiting to see what "alternative arrangements" might be. College have been blunt with them all year that exams weren't guaranteed and every assessed but of work may count towards a calculated grade.

He wants to know, obviously, but understands it will be a few weeks yet before it's resolved

https://twitter.com/johnjohnstonmi/status/1346191630240542722?s=19 - I don't think they have any firm plans for what will happen.

I'll be telling my A-level students, and my daughter, to behave as if the exams are still happening.

At the press conference they said they couldn't go ahead as usual, not that they wouldn't go ahead. Wouldn't be surprised if they did something like having Y11 sit GCSE maths and English or something.

Head of teaching union just said on Newsnight she had spoken to Schools Minister & exams are cancelled.

Beeb - reporting A levels and GCSE cancled - only vocational going ahead !

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-55537769

We had final year A level and GCSE kids in 2020.

GCSE probably the worst affected as they pretty much got dropped by the schools as had "finished" the curriculum by March - so then 7 months with no lessons. But they hadn't finished. They hadn't consolidated what was taught, didn't do that final revision and didn't learn how to get through proper full stress exams. This has left them badly prepared for A levels.

If they do one thing after this lockdown is over, it must be keeping the year 11s in school being taught right up until end of summer term (not cutting them loose in May).

Double trouble in our house as well, daughters doing GCSEs and A-levels. Biggest surprise was actually announcing it now rather than waiting until April. At least it'll be more of a level playing field for uni places with the Scottish and Welsh kids who have already had their exams cancelled.

I think the kids are going to be struggling for motivation, ours are already sick of on line lessons

My daughter quit her A-Levels (in her 2nd year) when schools broke-up for Christmas and is starting an apprenticeship next week. She'd got to the stage where school support amounted to sending a few emails and hardly anything else so she decided to jump ship.

I feel sorry for those who really need to go to University for their desired careers, it's a complete shit-fest.

For those that are drifting, look at other options - there are others ways than staying at school. This batch of kids may need to be more creative in how they get to where they want to be.

For those that are drifting, look at other options – there are others ways than staying at school. This batch of kids may need to be more creative in how they get to where they want to be.

Definitely this. A levels and uni are not the be all and end all that we used to think they were.

We're worried about our Eldest. He's due to take his GCSEs next summer. I don't envy students taking exams this year, or their parents, but at least some concessions will be made. I don't know whether next summer they'll consider how much school they missed this year and last, or it will be just a case of "catch up".

He took some exams at the start of last term, failed miserably, we didn't get any sort of feedback from school, but supposedly they were GSCE papers so they could gauge their levels, some kids seems to do great, some did okay and a lot failed badly. There are no live lessons planned via teams and only the odd bit of course work.

My two are in their A Level year. Keeping them motivated and upbeat is going to be my full time job for the next six months.

I think that main problem is the gap between students will have widened significantly. Some will have coped well with remote learning and self motivated and will be around the same standard if they had been in school, others will have done virtually nothing.

With no exams , my kids basically will have no sense of purpose now until they go to sixth form or Uni in the autumn.
I believe there will be some announcement tomorrow on what form the alternative arrangements will be but hope they find a fairer way of assessment following last year’s debacle.
They will need to carefully consider how they fill the gap for year 11 and 13 kids from whenever restrictions are eased up to the summer holidays.

Supposedly Gove confirmed no exams this morning.

Attendance at my live A-level lessons is running at 97% so far, which is slightly lower than we'd have in class in a normal year, but not too shabby... My youngest just had to crawl across the floor to use the printer behind me without my class seeing them 🙂

Yep it's a mess. Not helped by the vague language BJ used last night. Eldest has been revising hard for mocks due to start in 2 weeks time. Awaiting info on how that will play (the schools will be scrabbling to get a plan together i'm sure) but sort of looks like no mocks possible, no end GCSE exams so teacher led assessment which will need lots and lots of homework for them to make that assesment (back to coursework led GCSEs - I bet Gove hates that!).

Oh and humblebrag award of the day to :

thegeneralist
Free Member
Humph. Bit annoyed. Son has done loads of work towards his prelims, all for nowt.
Knew I should have queried with his German teacher why she only had him down for an 8 in German

Ho hum

Supposedly there is an announcement tomorrow. No idea whether it will actually clarify anything.

I suspect we are going to look at a mixture of teacher assessment, coursework and pre-release material.

Up until a few years ago we used to do something called 'controlled assessments' - essentially coursework done in school, under sort of exam conditions, marked by teachers, then moderated by exam boards.

They got rid of it because cheatinhg was totally endemic - my old school got busted for one of the teachers writing the answers up on the whiteboard and they queried why 32 kids all had identical answers. Most people were more savvy and got away with it.

It was a total joke - we pretend not to cheat, they pretend that we don't.

I expect this is what we will do this year.

Making concessions or allowances to get them onto the next step (A levels / degree) isn't any good if they don't know the basics properly. My youngest was aiming for an 8 or 9 in one of the GCSEs that never happened. Scrap the exams and add a rudderless 7 months and he scraped an E at the first A-level assessment.

Oh and humblebrag award of the day to

Why, thank you for noticing. 😁 I have very low self esteem so like to prop myself up by making unhelpful, boastful comments every now and again to try to convince myself that I [ or in this case mine] am not as inadequate as I think I am.

Rarely works though, I'm still a knob.
Ho hum