Head says RE GCSE results this yr will be so bad, not to count them in.

[mumblechum]

Just had a mail from the headmaster, first of all explaining why RE teaching has been lousy over the last two years (hod on TWO sets of maternity leave - the mind doth boggle!) so a temp teacher was in who, until half way through the course was teaching them the wrong curriculum.

The head is therefore saying that on the first day of Sept term, we can see what the results are and if we don't like them, we can not "cash them in", ie they don't get counted in at all. That will leave the pupils with just 11 subjects. Apparently, for some reason I don't understand, that would be preferable to having, say, a C or D when hopefully most other results will be A or B.

So, anyhow, in yr9 ds took the first half, did no revision and scraped a C. Last month he did virtually no revision so I can't see him getting better than a C overall.

Does anyone know whethr it would be better to not cash in such a poor result or to count it in on the basis that a D is better than nothing?

[mumblechum]

Sorry, should say that in addition to no revision, he had very few lessons and the ones he had were just discussions, so very little material to revise.

[mumblechum]

bumping, but I guess most Secondary teachers are working.

[edam]

Am not a teacher but am astonished to hear heads can just decide on a whim not to count some GCSE results - that would make a nonsense of the A-C pass rate, surely?

[mumblechum]

The mail says it's the pupil/parents who can choose not to count them, but also refers to a vote, which kind of implies that a majority of the pupils has to agree one way or another.

[ZZZenAgain]

no idea mumblechum what you should do about this but really 2 years inadequate teaching at that level too is deplorable and not just something you wave aside, with a "oh shall we just not cash in the results". Head should be assuring the teaching necessary for the exam.

Which does not help you. Are the dc going to be receiving proper tuition that will enable them to resit this exam or how is this being tackled, just two years lessons wasted?

[ZZZenAgain]

if it is a group decision thing, you'd best have a group meeting about it, so far as it is possible this time of the year.

[mumblechum]

The latter, ZZ. I asked for clarification from the HOY who said that if he wants to resit he'll have to study independently as there won't be any more lessons. She also said that most other schools do only 9 or 10 GCSEs, number 12 won't matter .

Am not overly concerned, he's predicted to get 8 A/A* but I would have thought that even a D for the 12th GCSE would be better than nothing

[belledechocolatefluffybunny]

He needs to cash them in no matter how dire they are, he can't just forget that children have sat this module because it might bring down the schools overall results. He should have acted to improve the standards way before now.

[ZZZenAgain]

a D is not going to look good.

That's really unfair especially if the children taught properly would have achieved a much higher grade

Might be better to study indepenently and resit the exam knowing now more or less what it entails. Get antoher A-B. Sorry don't really know

[scaryteacher]

Which board and syllabus? I can point you in the direction of the books if it is the exam board I teach and mark for.

[mumblechum]

Hmm, am at work now, so not sure, but think it was AQA. The last module was on the St Mark's gospel if that means anything to you.

[daphnedill]

I am a secondary school teacher (working part-time, but not today) and I have never heard of pupils being able to choose whether they cash in GCSE results. It happens at AS, but it seems a strange thing to do at GCSE.

As far as having 11 or 12 GCSEs, the school is correct. It matters not one jot whether a pupil has 11 or 12. My own DD has 10 and a half GCSEs at A/Aand a C in ICT (which was a compulsory short course for all KS4 pupils). I've told her to forget the ICT result when completing her UCAS form. Unis are looking for quality in GCSEs rather than quantity. The Value Added scores for schools are worked out by capping a pupil's achievement in their best 8 GCSEs. I kinow of one extremely high achieving grammar school which restricts its pupils to 9 GCSEs, although it does expect all pupils to achieve A in every subject.

Of course it's not satisfactory that teaching was inadequate for two years. If it had happened in Maths, English or Science, I'm sure the school would have done something about it, because results in these subjects (and MFL) appear in league tables. The school was in a very difficult position with this RE teacher. Legally, they couldn't offer a permanent contract to anybody else and good RE supply teachers are difficult to find. It would probably have been possible to swap classes, so that the damage was minimised.

What you do about the situation depends on whether RE is critical to your DC's future. Many schools insist all pupils sit GCSE RE because they think it will motivate them in a subject which has to be taught anyway. To be perfectly honest, there is nothing the school can do now other than apologise and, unless it's very important that your DC has GCSE RE (which is unlikely - even A level RE can be studied without GCSE) I would move on.

[daphnedill]

Ooops...just realised that I didn't want part of my message in bold. The As should have *s after them.

Also...just read the OP again. Is your DC still in Year 10? If yes and if this is a modular course, that could be why the head is giving you the option of cashing in the result. Presumably, pupils will continue to study RE and be given an opportunity to resit at the end of Year 11. If that's the case, it probably makes sense to resit. If your DC will be going into the Sixth Form next year, I would forget about it.

[mumblechum]

Hi thanks for your reply. He is only yr 10 but my understanding is that because he sat an exam in yr9, he won't get any more lessons in RE ever (the HOY said that the only religious teaching he'll get in yr 11 is as part of PCSE or whatever its called

[mumblechum]

RE definitely NOT a high priority . I think, as you suggest, that if the result is C or even worse, that he'll just not cash it in. Interesting that only the best 8 are taken into account for working out the points. I wonder why the school insists on 12 in that case.

[daphnedill]

There's been a management failure. When I was a Head of Department (not RE), I would have made absolutely sure that pupils were following the correct syllabus and would have probably swapped classes around, so that everybody had good teaching for at least some of the time. Other than grumble, I don't see there's much you can do - just keep an eye on your DC's work to make sure it doesn't happen in a critical subject.

In your shoes, I'd forget about the RE and make sure your DS gets the 8A/A*s he's predicted and at least B in the other subjects.

[sayithowitis]

I guess it depends where your DS is going to study for A levels. In this area, they all have to go to the local sixth form college, where they have a points system to help decide which A levels they can do. Points are allocated according to which grade was achieved at GCSE.So, A* = 10,A= 9 B = 8, C = 7 D= 6 E=4 F=2 G=1 The total points are added together then averaged out over the number of GCSE's taken. Every A level subject has a minimum average points requirement, which varies according to subject. In your DS's case, if this system was in place, it could be the difference between getting a place on his chosen A level course or not!

[mumblechum]

SIHII, he's hoping to do medicine, so will be taking Chem, Bio, Physics English and History at AS & probably dropping the History for A2.

So far (touch wood) all coursework for sciences and english have been marked at A or A* (no c/w for history yet) so hopefully unless he messes up massively next year the RE thing won't matter.

Hopefully

[mnistooaddictive]

If there was only one RE teacher which is entirely possible then there would be no-one to check which syllabus was being taught. There would be no-one to swop classes with etc as other people have suggested. It is a very slack but not the first time I have heard of this type of thing happening (in other subjects). It will make very little difference to him whether he has 11 or 12 so it is personal choice.

[daphnedill]

Oh! For goodness' sake! Please get real! If the OP's DS achieves 8 A/A*s no sixth form college in the land is going to refuse him a place. It really doesn't matter what grade he achieves in RE. Personally, I would not even enter the grade (if below a B) on any application form.

[Helokitty]

Sorry this has happened to your son, unfortunately, it happens all too often. The reality all too often is that no-one really cares about RS, no-one really supports or helps the teacher, and nothing ever gets done until it is too late. Its rubbish, but it does happen unfortunately. When I was on one of my Mat leaves, I had to take weekly phone calls from my mat leave replacement as I had a non specialist covering, and there was no-one else who knew enough to be able to take responsibility for the courses.

As a GCSE, I wouldn't worry about it particularly; so long as he has got the requirements for his AS levels, it won't affect him. However, I would speak to the school to clarify the impact it might have on his UCAS application. If he gets the grade - will he have to declare it on his UCAS applications? I note that he wants to apply for medicine - hugely competitive, and so I would check what would be best for your son to do. It might be best for him not to have the grade, rather than risking having a low grade being used against him.

Other than that, I don't think it will matter too much.

[scaryteacher]

You can cash the results if you do the full course GCSE over 2 years. Ds will be doing his first RE GCSE in Year 10, and the second in Year 11; I think he can get the whole result in Year 11 for a full GCSE.

RE may be important for a Doctor as he has to be aware of religious sensibilities in both patients and colleagues - RE is about giving students some degree of religious literacy - very important imo, but then, RE is my subject.

[muddleduck]

As I understand it it makes no difference to your ds whether this results is 'cashed in'. As others have said, he will have enough other subjects to just leave this off his UCAS forms. As a uni admissions tutor I would recommend that he does this. We tend to only chase up 'missing' subjects if there is something really obvious missing (Eng, Maths, Science) or if the number of subjects seems low.

On the other hand it prob does make a big difference to the school and I am contrary enough that I would insist that these were cashed in so that the school's results are a fair reflection of their teaching. I wouldn't like to seem them 'get away' with this dreadful level of teaching.

[sandripples]

My DD got 10 GCSEs and got into Cambridge. I really don't think you should worry about the 11th for uni purposes.

Pity the school got into this mess though - not good.

[Helokitty]

I think (but do not know, so you will need to clarify this) that you have to enter all your certificated exam results on your UCAS application.

This is from UCAS "For each school and college, you provide details of:

all qualifications for which you have accepted certification from an awarding organisation, even if you're retaking all or part of the qualification
all qualifications for which you are currently studying or awaiting results.

All qualifications must be entered, even if you received an unsuccessful grade, if you are still waiting to take the final exams or if you are waiting for the results."

If the grade is likely to be bad, you might want to not get it certificated if you can do that, to avoid putting a bad grade on the UCAS application - after all, universities will only see the bad grade and not the reasons why.

You used to be able to leave them, but I don't think this is the case any more. You'll need to check that out as I am not involved with that part of the UCAS application. But this info would influence my thinking.