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Pushing back exams hasn’t gone down well with some. If accountability remains & the pupils are sitting them next summer, what’s the solution?
Historically exams used to be in June & only in more recent years have they been brought back to May. Year 11 has become a rushed rat race.
If you teach an option subject you have 50-60% less contact time than a core subject. An extra 6 weeks is a lot of time. A lot can be done with the extra time.
The concern over university stating time in the autumn.... how much dead time is there at uni? With long holidays, reading weeks etc?
Which units would we drop out of the GCSE courses? Not all schools teach units in the same way. What would be the unintended consequence for A level in doing so?
We also have a double whammy effect, a lot of the content taught from September to March may be forgotten & then there are question marks regarding how much has been learnt in lockdown. A lot of learning has potentially been lost.
Year 11 is going to become a circus of intervention, even more so if we only have until May.
You could adjust grade boundaries but what impact would this have on the disadvantaged if we keep the bell curve?
You could adjust grade boundaries but what impact would this have on the disadvantaged if we keep the bell curve?
Schools are ultimately accountable for results, irrespective of the Ofsted framework shift, the extra time (if high stakes accountability remains) will be needed simply to complete specifications at GCSE & A Level.
Sending pupils in the exam hall, not fully confident, is worrying. Pupils lacking confidence are more likely to put their pen down, stop & fail the exam if they can’t answer the first few questions because we didn’t teach them it.
Pupils will also freak out if they are going into the exam season knowing the course content hasn’t been fully delivered. Watch the parental complaints (arguably rightly) too.
