‘Have a fun INSET day everyone. What are you doing?’
‘Revising’
‘Have a lovely weekend everyone. What are you all up to?’
‘Revising’
‘Anybody up to anything fun this evening?’
‘Revising’
Revising, revising, revising. That’s what Y13 students tell me all the time now. It didn’t use to be like this. They’d tell me about the party that’s on at the weekend or the shopping trip they were going on but now it is revising, revising, revising. Why is this? It’s not lockdown, the rule of six or the 10pm curfew. The answer, quite simply, is CAGs.
The summer debacle of no exams has left a legacy like no other. When it was decided that centre assessed grades were going to be used for students’ grades, the rules of the schooling game had changed. The destiny of a student’s grade was no longer in the lucky dip of a one-off set of exams but potentially in the continual assessment from their teacher. This means that every assessment at school now REALLY meant something. If CAGs were going to be used again (and the government hasn’t ruled it out), then they will have to perform better than their classmates in every test/assessment/assignment, in order to achieve a high ranking from their teacher.
It doesn’t matter if a teacher tells them not to worry about a test and patiently explains to them that a test is purely about finding out what they don’t know, if the teacher is collecting the data, then the students will be concerned and will be desperate to do well. Sixth Form students are not stupid and if CAGs are going to be used, the teacher will have to use every bit of data at their disposal in order to justify why they have given certain people a grade and why they have ranked them above someone else.
Of course, you can say you will only use a Mock result but what if a student gets the same score as someone else? Then other data will have to be used to separate as you can’t rank at the same level. What if someone has a ‘bad day’ in the mock? Surely it’s right to use other data isn’t it? Of course but then we go back to every assessment matters and if every assessment matters, you can understand why students are revising, revising, revising.
And what impact is this having on students’ wellbeing? If students are continually pushing and pushing and pushing, then eventually something is going to break. I’m sure I am not alone in believing that my students’ mental/physical health is more important than a letter on a piece of paper. But this is the situation we have ended up in and everytime I see an article about using teacher assessment and cancelling exams, I want to roll up and die.
Obviously I know that exams are not perfect but are people like Kenneth Baker aware of the impact that CAGs will have on schools and the students themselves? It’s not just about the constant workload the students will feel they have to do but it will lead to a breakdown in the relationships between students, teachers and parents. Imagine a mock exam where a student is two marks off a higher grade. Marking is subjective, we all know that, hence all the remarks in a normal summer, therefore the student will be desperate to find those extra two marks, just in case the mock gets used as the CAG. What happens if a teacher doesn’t give it to them?
We have already seen relationships break down after the 2020 CAGs, with many people contesting their results and causing huge misery for everyone involved, as well as wasting a huge amount of resources within the school setting. It’s understandable if you are unhappy to challenge the school…a parent wants what is best for their child but ultimately not everyone can get an A or A*.
I’ve been amazed that there have been so many people on Twitter who would be happy to continue with teacher assessment. I genuinely felt it was the worse thing I’ve ever had to do in my teaching career. It was like the educational equivalent of ‘Sophie’s Choice’. You have spent two years getting students ready, enjoying their company, revelling in the camaraderie of it all and then suddenly the onus is on you to rank them and give out grades that you genuinely aren’t sure about. I’ve written before about the difficulty of predicting grades and therefore the thought of them being used horrors me.
I was genuinely happy when I saw a TeacherTapp survey that suggested that teachers didn’t want exams cancelled but was still amazed that 28% wanted them to be. I just don’t get that given the additional pressure put on teachers and students for the whole year.
I would love the government to do the exact opposite of what Kenneth Baker suggested and announce that, by hook or by crook, the summer exams will be going ahead. If teachers are concerned about finishing courses, either make them later or cut some content as they have already done. What we can’t have is students continually on the edge…it’s a depressing time to be a teacher at the moment and it’s even more depressing knowing that these fun loving teenagers are forever stuck in a room revising, revising, revising.
On Teaching... 