Date: 25/02/21
By Alan Hardie, CEO at NCEAT.

Over the last few months, there have been more newspaper headlines about schools than I can even remember. However this week must have broken the record, with daily headlines.

The great news is that our pupils can finally return to school from March 8th and we can’t wait to have them back. We will be fully open in Bishop’s, Castle and Warkworth from Monday 8th. However, the headline from the Prime Minister’s speech of “all schools back on the 8th” was not entirely accurate, as given the requirement for testing, it is almost impossible for any secondary school to be fully open straight away.

I understand that when politicians make a pledge about a particular date, they will be attacked in the press and probably by some of their supporters if they fail to make it. To avoid the Government being seen not to achieve the target of having all schools back on 8th March, the problem has been passed on to the schools themselves. The Government have required all secondary schools to Covid test pupils before they are allowed back into school, one of three Covid tests which secondary schools must complete on all pupils before Easter.

This is a very significant logistical problem even for an average sized secondary school, such as Duke’s, to perform on almost 1000 pupils, as well as the twice weekly tests for around 150 staff. I can only imagine the discussions taking place in some of the larger secondary schools around the country, which have 2000 or more pupils to test. Each individual test takes a minimum of 4 minutes per pupil…

However, although this is yet another “over to you…” problem given to schools to deal with, we are putting together a plan to get initial testing completed as quickly as possible to get pupils back into lessons as soon as possible.

The other big announcements have been about extra ‘catch up funding’ for summer schools, etc., which is very welcome, and at last having some certainty about exams. We will share our plans for the catch up funding in the next few weeks. We are absolutely committed to ensuring that our ‘catch up’ plans are as much about making up for missed extracurricular and social experiences as they are about academic catch up. The vast majority of our pupils have engaged with online learning very well. Of course they will have some gaps to be addressed but they have also missed out some crucial opportunities to take part in sports, arts, music, visits, etc. so our ‘catch up’ strategy will also be focusing on this.

It is good news that we have a clearer idea on how GCSE, A level and BTEC grades will be awarded. In many ways, it is similar to the Centre Assessed Grades used in 2020, but without the link to a school’s previous results. In many respects, OFQUAL and DfE have come up with the ‘least worst’ solution, where schools will determine grades using a combination of mock exams, coursework and essays. There will also be optional assessments set by exam boards for all subjects, but they don’t need to be taken in exam conditions. Each school will have until June 18th to submit grades, which have to be agreed by at least two teachers and senior leaders before being signed off by the Principal.

Schools will have their internal quality assurance processes signed off by exam boards prior to grade submission. In June and July, exam boards will randomly pick schools to sample the evidence they used. Results days have also been moved to August 10th for A-levels and August 12th for GCSE. An infographic has been included below to summarise the process.

For all pupils in Years 11 and 13, the next few weeks in school provide a fantastic opportunity to improve grades. Unlike last year when grades were determined by before the March lockdown, any assessments that pupils complete over the next few weeks gives them the chance of improving their grade. The message has to be that there will almost certainly never be another opportunity like this, where grades won’t be based on all or nothing exams nor have predetermined proportions. The final grades for each of our Year 11 and 13 pupils are very much in their own hands and those who work hard and put their best efforts in over the next three months will get the grades they deserve.