The past few weeks have brought about a lot of change. Schools have closed and ‘GCSE’s have been cancelled’.
So, what now?
I would still recommend that you consider ensuring that your child continues to prepare for GCSEs in some way, as much as you can motivate them to do so, as it is very likely that most schools will base the recommended GCSE grades on various assessments, delivered remotely, over the coming weeks and months.
As part of my role at Get My Grades, I have been in discussion with the Department for Education (DfE) and I am aware that there is a lot of work going on at the moment to try and establish how qualifications will be awarded fairly this year. It seems very likely that schools will be asked (or possibly mandated) to provide some kind of assessment opportunities for the students who would have otherwise sat public examinations in order to justify the grades they put forward for their students.
Therefore, I strongly recommend that students continue their studies as much as possible in order to ensure that they can perform well in any such assessments that are delivered. One thing that the government and Ofqual will be keen to avoid is much larger numbers of students receiving better grades than the average over the past few years. This would not be fair for past and future cohorts and could devalue the qualifications awarded this year.
I feel it is important to let parents have as much up-to-date guidance as possible. The notion that the exams are simply ‘cancelled’ and that ‘that’s that’ in terms of work until September, is likely not to be the case, I’m afraid.