16th April 2020

 

Dear Students, Parents and Carers of Year 11

 

Update on the Announcement Regarding the Awarding Of Qualifications

 

You will hopefully already be aware of the recent announcement by Ofqual, regarding the awarding of qualifications for this summer’s examination series (See information on the Academy’s website in the Examinations Section - Dated 3rd April 2020).

 

This initial announcement related to GCSE and A Level qualifications and not Vocational or Technical qualifications (BTEC and OCR Nationals). The qualification courses that have components that are internally assessed (coursework) in addition to examined elements.

 

Ofqual have now updated their guidance for how these other qualifications, taken alongside or instead of GCSEs, are to be awarded too. Like the previous announcement about GCSEs and A Levels, these Vocational, Technical or General qualifications will receive a ‘calculated result’.

 

What is a ‘Calculated result’ and how will grades be awarded to Students this Summer?

 

Firstly, teachers will provide assessed grades to exam boards for students in each subject they are taking. These will be based on what the teacher believes each student would have achieved had they sat the exams this summer. They will base their assessment on the following:

 

· Classwork and bookwork

· Any participation in performances in subjects such as Performing Arts or PE

· Any non-exam assessment – whether complete or not

· Results of any assignments or exams

· Previous examination results, where appropriate

 

Students will not be asked for any additional homework or mock exams to inform these grades.

 

Having made a decision about each individual student, teachers are then required to rank order the students within each grade level for each subject. For example, all those students receiving an assessment grade of 5 in GCSE maths, will then be listed in a rank order, where position number 1 is the most secure/highest attaining student, and so on.

 

For Vocational, Technical and General qualifications, depending on the structure of the qualification, teachers may be asked to provide an assessment grade for the whole qualification, or for uncompleted modules or units.

 

Exam boards will be contacting schools asking them to submit the above information by a deadline that will be no earlier than 29th May 2020.

 

Following this, Ofqual then collate the assessment grades from all schools, before placing them within a standardisation model to ensure nation-wide levels of consistency and accuracy. The outcome of this will be a grade awarded to student, no later than the usual results day in August.

 

It is important to state that Ofqual have told us that these assessed grades need to be confidential and teachers will not be allowed to share these grades with students. Therefore, please do not ask us for these grades.

 

Ofqual will look at all the grades and decide what the final grade for each student in each subject should be. They are working hard to ensure that grades are fair.

 

Year 11 students will get their final grades in the summer. Ofqual has confirmed today, that grades will be available for Year 11 students on the planned results day of 20th August 2020.

 

These are unusual circumstances for us all. I hope that this letter provides you will some certainty about how the process will work this summer for your exam grades. Ofqual has said they would like us to reassure you that the grades you get this summer will look exactly the same, as in previous years, and will have equal status with universities, colleges and employers, so that you can move forward in your lives as you have planned.

 

If you have any questions, please contact the school using the numbers and addresses above.

 

The most important thing, at this time, is for you to stay safe and well. Please be assured that we are doing our best to make sure the process of awarding qualifications is right for you.

 

Yours Sincerely

 

E. Snelgrove

Deputy Headteacher