The DfE recently released information regarding the cancelled summer 2020 examinations and how grades will be decided for students which I’ll come back to in more detail later. But what I’ve been contemplating lately is what is going to happen to our (current) Y10’s exams in 2021? We have no idea when we will return to school and our cohort is only halfway through their Literature content. How can they cover the rest of Literature and thoroughly understand the Language papers in less than an academic year? I suppose the DfE will release information on this soon but the possible scenarios are distracting me:
- Students sit the full 4 papers (2 lit/2 lang) and grade boundaries are adjusted accordingly.
- Students sit partial papers or 1 of each paper.
The problem with no.1 is the disadvantaged students become even more disadvantaged. There will be students up and down the country that are continuing with their studies. They will have access to resources, and crucially, they will have the motivation and support at home to move forward with their learning.
We are ‘teaching’ our Y10s remotely but it is limited. We decided not to introduce new content because we’re aware that not all students are accessing the remote platform in the same way as their peers. There are a lot of students that are working from their phones which has its own limitations. They aren’t sitting at desks on laptops or computers. They are signing in and making their presence known but their environments are far from calm learning zones. Because of this, we decided to focus on recapping prior knowledge during the school closure. We have already studied A Christmas Carol and Macbeth, plus a few ‘Power & Conflict’ poems so far, and feel it is best to ensure they don’t forget what they have already learned.
Therefore, the issue with suggestion no.2 is how can exam boards decide what to test if they choose not to commit to all four papers? Every school teaches their content in their own order. Some schools even teach Literature in Y9 so their students would know all of the set texts, whereas, some don’t study the Shakespeare play until Y11 so would have no knowledge at all of that section.
This brings me back to suggestion no.1. The language papers are also a major concern. We are an improving school and one of the major developments to the department has been an overhaul of the curriculum. Sadly, I know that our students have not been prepared enough (in KS3) for the demands of GCSE English Language because of their prior curriculum. We knew when we redesigned the curriculum that we would have a lot of gaps to fill and we were working hard to do this but our job is even more difficult now that we’re not in school. Thus, the gap will continue to widen for us if we have to sit the same papers without adequate time to prepare.
One of the advantages of year 10 is the time it allows for students to experience mock exams and feel what it is like to prepare for a series of assessments. It is also the time for making mistakes so our students know what they need to improve on for the real thing. There is no way we will want to spend time next year on mock exams when every minute is going to be precious. The thought of this for some students will be extremely unsettling. Therefore, I think it would be sensible to remove a paper from Language and a paper from Literature. I don’t know how achievable this is but I think it would remove a lot of pressure from teachers and students.
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