Tomorrow our Year 11 students will receive their GCSE grades, the result of many months of hard work affected by the unexpected interruption of Coronavirus.
The Government recently announced that the grades would not follow the initial planned route that A Levels took based purely on algorithms, and would instead be either based on the school’s centre assessed grades or the Government’s algorithm-based grades, whichever was the highest. We wanted to share with you the process that we followed, so you have a clearer insight into how our proposed grades were fed into the system and how our rigorous processes have tried to make this as fair as it could possibly be.
Ofqual initially provided schools with guidance in April on how to handle the process of grading students in their subjects. Teachers were asked the question: “What grade would this particular student most plausibly have achieved had they taken the exam?”. This is the centre assessed grade that was submitted to the exams boards.
We have taken every step to ensure that the grades reflect the ability of our students and give a fair result that they can take forward into the next stages of their lives. Accordingly we’ve been as objective as we can, as well as being rigorous about this complex and lengthy process.
We have now received the proposed grades back from the DfE, and on Thursday 20th August our Year 11 students will find out their grades. Every year, even in normal times, grades can surprise students – for good, and for bad. In previous years there has been an opportunity to appeal results. This year because a student has been awarded the higher grade the government have removed the appeal process. However, there will be an opportunity for students to sit their GCSEs in the autumn term if they so wish.
Should you have any specific questions about your results please use this email address rather than contacting individual staff directly GCSE2020@tiverton.devon.sch.uk.