Recently published from OFQUAL- How GCSE and A-level grades will be awarded this summer.

Laura from Laura Does Maths decodes the headlines:

👩🏻‍🏫 Schools will be asked to submit two pieces of information on each student – the grade that they believe the student would have achieved if they had sat the exam, and a ranking of all the students in the school by ability. This will enable awarding bodies to ‘moderate’ and ensure that some schools are not marking too harshly or inflating grades.
👩🏻‍🏫 Exam boards are working to provide exam sittings in the autumn for students that do not agree with their grades.
👩🏻‍🏫 Private candidates – those that are not enrolled with a school but are home educated or are studying independently may need to take an exam in the Autumn to obtain a grade if there is no one from the registered exam centre (school) that knows their level well enough to issue a grade. OFQUAL have mentioned that they will be issuing more guidance for these specific students in due course.

Okay so what does this mean for you?

👩👱‍♂Why aren’t UCAS predicted grades being awarded to year 13?

👩🏻‍🏫 For the majority of students who have been studying in colleges and schools the solution that OFQUAL has come up with is much fairer than awarding UCAS grades. It also looks that grades will be issued before the planned dates in August which will give students time to decide if they wish to enter themselves for Autumn exams. A recent study published by TES (2016) showed that 5 out of 6 UCAS grades were inaccurate and in fact 3 out of 4 predicted grades were higher than the students’ actual achievement. There is also no way of moderating UCAS grades between schools/colleges. UCAS grades were also set back in October/November and will not have taken into account any progress the student has made from that point onwards. 

🧔👩‍🦱 I’m Year 11/13 or a parent of year 11/13. What does this mean for us?

👩🏻‍🏫 I would recommend that all students in this situation continue with their studies or at least keep up with some level of revision in case they are not issued the grades they require in August and need to take an exam in the Autumn.
👩🏻‍🏫 Year 13 in particular should ensure that they have finished the course for all of their subjects, especially if they wish to progress to university where the expectation will be that they have completed their courses. We are awaiting more information from UCAS as to how this years university places will be awarded.
👩🏻‍🏫 Year 11 should have already finished the course by the time school closures were announced. They should focus mainly on core subjects and the subjects that they wish to take if they are continuing to A-levels.

🧔👩‍🦱 I’m Year 11/13 or a parent of year 11/13 who is home schooled and was due to take an exam at a centre that does not know them, help!

👩🏻‍🏫 This is a very difficult position to be in. As exam centres have been asked to predict grades, they will only be able to do this for the students that they know well, that is, those that are enrolled with them. If you have a professional tutor working with your child for certain subjects it may be that they are able to provide enough evidence to submit a grade to the exam centre. However, in most cases it is unfortunately likely that independent candidates will not be able to obtain a grade this summer. I would continue preparing for taking GCSE and A-level exams with the view of sitting them in the Autumn. It is unclear what UCAS will do regarding independent candidates that are not able to obtain a grade but have been offered a place on a course in October which is conditional on their grades. I hope to bring you an update on this as soon as possible.

👩🏻‍🏫  For year 11 students it is likely that sixth form entry requirements will be relaxed come September and individual sixth forms may ask students to take an entry exam to show ability in a subject if they have not been able to obtain a grade in it.