GCSEPod can support your contingency plan
The DfE and Ofqual announced contingency plans for the 2022 GCSE exam series. Advance information won’t be released until February 2022, but what we know so far threatens to increase the work load of middle leaders and teachers – when it is already at an all-time high.
According to the DfE statement, students completing their GCSEs should expect to take exams in the summer. But, if exams are unable to go ahead safely, teacher-assessed grades (or TAGs) must be made available. To provide these the current GCSE cohort will go through three mock seasons before completing the year, and after that they still may sit national exams.
Unable to use previously seen GCSE questions, teachers and subject leaders are facing the possibility of creating several exam papers and 100s of questions to deliver on DfE requirements.
How GCSEPod can help
Our exam-style assignments are a perfect solution. Assess your students confidently with unique, board-specific, exam-style questions:
- Covering 27 subjects
- Written and quality assured by examiners and available with full mark schemes
- Compile questions to create and print unique exam papers for use in exam conditions
- Or, set question papers digitally for practice
- Online and self-marking available
- Results can be collated online for easy access and review or exported to Excel
The DfE Guidelines summarised?
This time around there are far more guidelines and requirements for schools to follow. As well as the current mock season, schools have been advised to assess students twice more – once during the Spring term and again during the summer term. The DfE stated these assessments must be held under, ‘exam-like conditions’, with ‘unseen questions.’
Students should be told what subject content will be covered and the DfE advise this is provided in plenty of time so students can revise as much as possible, but they should not be able to make predictions based on the information given to them.
The DfE also stated the assessments should be ‘timed and supervised’, and that students should work independently without assistance (other than when required for reasonable adjustments) – in other words these are ‘full’ mock exams.
If you’re interested in knowing more about how our Exam-Style Assignments can support your staff, workload and overall contingency find out more or book a demo.