What Gavin Williamson isn’t telling parents, and why students mustn’t take their foot off the gas.

What’s happening on planet education?

Parents need little reminder that the horrors of enforced home-schooling are back. A recent survey suggested that 92% of teachers favoured the resignation of Gavin Williamson in the light of recent announcements in relation to the examination series of Summer 2021. We’ve seen parents flooding the Ofsted website with compliments, rather than complaints about their school and on-line learning in direct contradiction of Gavin Williamson’s appeal to complain. It’s never a dull moment. We digest the last few weeks in education, and share our perspective on what might happen next.

What is the problem here?

A brief refresher on the past 3 weeks in education:

• 3rd January Boris Johnson urged parents to send their children into primary school maintaining they were Covid-safe.
• 4th January Boris Johnson announces the closures of schools in England and a further lockdown. Schools scramble to put in place on-line learning while remaining open for key workers’ children.
• 6th January 2021 Gavin Williamson announces the fact that GCSE and A Level exams would not be going ahead. Teacher assessments to replace formal examinations. He also urges parents to complain to Ofsted if they felt that their school was not providing adequate on-line learning. This was a surprise to Ofsted, who were ‘blindsided’ by the move. 
• 9th January 2021 Ofsted have received over 5000 e mails from parents praising their school’s response to on-line learning.
• On the same day newspapers report that some schools are urging parents not to send their children into school if they can help it. Many schools are reporting that schools are over 50% full of students, a huge increase in numbers in comparison to the lockdown of March 2020.
• 11th January 2021 Ofsted warn that safeguarding concerns may not be heard amongst a deluge of over 10,000 e mails from parents, placing support and trust in their schools.
• 15th January 2021 Ofqual open a consultation to look at ways forward for students affected by examination changes. You can find details of that consultation here: Consultation on how GCSE, AS and A level grades should be awarded in summer 2021 (publishing.service.gov.uk)

What is the result of all these changes?

Our feedback suggests that these changes have left school leaders, teachers, examiners, parents and students confused, to say the least. A recent survey suggested that 92% of teachers favoured the resignation of Gavin Williamson in the light of recent announcements in relation to the examination series of Summer 2021.

Some youngsters phoned their schools thanking their Headteachers and presuming their school life was over. (Big hint – it isn’t!)

The announcement that exams were not going ahead would seem to be a red-herring given that it looks like shorter assessments will be critical as soon as schools return to business. Call them what you like, students are still going to be assessed.

The Ofqual consultation feels like closing the gate after the horse has bolted. The National Education Union representing teachers, have been inviting a discussion on exam arrangements since the debacle of the Summer of 2020 examinations. This has been consistently ignored, and may account for many teacher views.

We know that the only fair way of assessing students is to standardise tests. Schools setting their own assessments would lead to unfairness in the system, with some schools setting easier or harder tasks and potentially disadvantaging some students, and putting others at unfair advantage. This is even more the case, given the attendance effects of the pandemic.

Our view is that involvement of teachers experienced in moderating and examining is going to be critical going forward in order to maintain standards. There are clear expectations from Ofqual and exam boards that 2021 exams MUST BE comparative with the standards achieved in Summer 2020. This message was also applied to the resits taken by students in November 2020. The only fair way to do this is to moderate schools externally.

Our key message for exam students is: please DO NOT take your foot off the pedal – every assessment will count as soon as you get back into school!

We have a solution.

We know that student assessments are going to be even more critical as we go forward. We have a solution to support our year 11 students. Our top boffins have been working on this for some months, and we are now in a position to offer on-line group learning to cover any gaps and shortfalls due to the turbulence of recent months in the sphere of education. We are planning on-line learning to take place on a weekend in 2 hour sessions where students can have an input in Maths, English and Science. As we go forward, and gain more insight from our examination boards, this will feed into our sessions.

A taster:

Maths sessions will be focused on decoding wordy questions, which commonly trip up students.

English sessions will be focused on Spelling, Punctuation and Grammar, which accounts for nearly 20% of the marks in English Language.

Science sessions will be focused on the Maths content that commonly ‘floors’ students.

We are doing this in groups and on-line, and so this therefore makes it easier to reduce the cost to parents. Each 2 hour session will only cost ￡32 per session.

How do I access this for my child?

If you need more information and would like your child to be involved, please get in touch with us at: [email protected] or [email protected] or send your request for more information to www.thinktuition.co.uk