How grades will be set
The headlines:
Your school or college will be asked to send exam boards two pieces of information for each of your subjects, based on what they know about your work and achievements:
• the grade they believe you were most likely to get if teaching, learning and exams had happened as planned
• within each subject, the order of students at your school or college, by performance, for each grade.
This information will be used to standardise judgements – allowing fine tuning of the standard applied across schools and colleges.
Your school or college will consider a range of things like your classwork and homework; your results in assignments and any mock exams; any non-exam assessment or coursework you might have done; and your general progress during your course.
(There are more details given for specific circumstances, so if you have a particular question, have a read of the full info – it’s probably covered.)
Deadlines?
Teachers will be submitting these grades no sooner than the 29th of May.
Results day?
No later than ‘normal’ results day, but ideally sooner. So, end of July to mid-August we think.
Do I need to complete any new work for my school/college to submit a grade?
Your school or college is not required to set additional mock exams or homework for your centre assessment grade, and you won’t be disadvantaged if you were not set, or were unable to complete, any work given out after schools were closed.
Can I see the grades my school/college submits for me?
No, this information will be confidential. Please don’t ask your teachers, or anyone else at your school or college, to tell you the grades they will be sending to the exam boards or where they have placed you in the order of students; they will not be allowed to share this with you.
What about my Y10 (or lower) doing early entry?
Sorry. They will not be including Y10 or below in these centre assessed grades. They will have to wait and sit exams at a later date. 😔
iGCSEs?
The Cambridge Assessment International Education has announced a new methodology to grade students. It said the grades will depend on data provided by educational centres and schools to make “evidence-based decisions about grades” for the May/June 2020 examinations, as majority of the schools around the globe remain closed due to the coronavirus pandemic.
Uzma Yousuf, Country Director, Pakistan, of Cambridge Assessment International Education, said:
“The decision on grades to be awarded to students will be made by Cambridge, using our own evidence combined with evidence from schools. We are asking schools to collaborate with us as we make evidence-based decisions about grades for each student in each subject they have entered for in the May/June 2020 exam series.”
She further said that Cambridge was trying to determine what evidence schools will be able to provide to help grade students. “This evidence will include examples of work students have done to prepare for their May/ June 2020 exams,”
Cambridge assured students that grades awarded will carry the same currency as before and will enable students to move ahead in their educational career.
In earlier statement, Cambridge announced that it will not going to hold exams in any country. “We have taken the difficult decision not to run our international examinations in the May/June 2020 series in any country. This includes Cambridge IGCSE, Cambridge O Level, Cambridge International AS & A Level, Cambridge AICE Diploma and Cambridge Pre-U.”
Full details
It’s all here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/gcses-as-and-a-level-awarding-summer-2020
P.S – We have a couple of free online events planned to help you out with all this – click on the image to register.
For those of you not on Facebook, here is the live update I posted this morning.
Since then, we have had further information, so here’s the update:
Update (8:15am, 19th March):
– Key worker lists to be released later today.
– Schools being asked to work together to provide care / education for children of key workers over the Easter holiday period too.
– Details should come tomorrow about how grades will be set.
– Students should get grades in the summer as usual – that’s the plan.
– There will be an appeals process if you don’t believe your grade reflects your true ability.