Thursday 20 August
GCSE results day and Adora has done brilliantly. It’s all a tad bittersweet though as there have actually been no actual exams sat, instead the grades have been based on teacher assessments alone. The actual term is Centre Assessed Grades or CAGs.
Regardless, she has passed every subject with flying colours. The highlights being a 9 in Religous Studies and 8’s in English Literature and Design Technology (where her focus was textiles). This now sets her up perfectly for starting A’ Levels in a few weeks time.
We’ve just got back from having a meal at Wagamama’s in Colchester yo celebrate. Considering it’s a warm August evening, the town centre was very empty. More and more shop fronts are empty with only the bleached shadows of shop name signs as reminders of what was once there. Names that have been mainstays of high streets up and down the country for decades.
In recent times the high street has been changing. As more and more is purchased online shops that you walk into have been less desirable. The COVID 19 pandemic has accelerated this as companies are forced to cut costs. As they have disappeared, so new bars and restaurants have filled the spaces. Until now. People are choosing not to eat out, certainly those with money to spend.
The young are less fearful but don’t have the disposable income, the older are at greater risk of more serious consequences if they were to contract it. The lockdown closed access to any restaurant or shop and has been the nail in the coffin to what was already a fragile part of the economy. People are losing their jobs and the young, in particular, are finding it hard to get work. If people don’t eat and drink, staff are not needed; if they don’t have work, they don’t have money to spend etc etc. The impact of the virus is right there, clear as day.
Adora’s generation risk being known as the year that didn’t sit exams and got over-inflated results. But, wait. Let’s look at that. The algorithm that was designed to take the CAG and adjust it was floored. It downgraded the poor by knocking down students grades based on the previous record of the school they attended. Wrong. So, after a U-turn by the government, they are now getting a grade based on what their teachers who have taught them for the past five years believe they are at. They have evidence to prove it in their books and their mock exams. We all know that sitting a formal test knocks marks off a student – they run out of time, misread a question or panic. So, I ask, what is the most accurate assessment if what a person truly knows and understands? The teacher or the test?
Now, we look to the class of 2021. Stanley will be sitting his A’ Levels. He has missed over a third of his first year. He has studied diligently from home but it’s not the same. His second year (and Adora’s first) will start in a few weeks with a part-time timetable of blended learning; some in college, some online from home. He will then be doing his mock exams and completing his application for University. Then he sits his exams next summer. Something will need to be done to those exams to make them fair. Surely, this must include trusting our teachers to grade some of this once again? It all comes down to trusting a system that will be fair and accurate. Unfortunately, we need to be able to trust the current government to make decisions that will get this right. I would grade their track record a very firm ‘U’.
The Bald Birder 