Schools closed until March/April? (part 4) **Mod warning in OP 22/01**

alroley wrote: »

I have a 6th year accounting class. The exam counts for 100%. For Business it is also 100%.

The "changes" made to accounting are useless. They said one topic is guaranteed. That topic has been on every single LC accounting paper in the same format since before I was born.

The only other change made was in section one - students have always had a choice here and they know and practice which one they will do well before the exams. The change was made to only one of the choices.

My subject adjustments are adequate. According to union meeting i was at (virtually) during the week the sec are less inclined to change papers again but more inclined to adjust the marking scheme to take account of school closures. Don't know what to make of that honestly considering many subject teachers have said their changes aren't adequate. Have you contacted your subject association? They were invited to give feedback,some did and some didn't apparently.

I do think extended closures would force their hand re futher adjustments but I also think LC will be the first cohort back, God knows what will happen with JC.

Remember last year the announcement of predicted grades meamt no further contact with our students. Are you happy for that to happen this year?

History Queen wrote: »

Remember last year the announcement of predicted grades meant no further contact with our students. Are you happy for that to happen this year?

I don't think that would happen this time. In England, they are doing calculated grades and are still being taught? I know they have more of a continuous assessment model anyway, so it is easier.

alroley wrote: »

I don't think that would happen this time. In England, they are doing calculated grades and are still being taught? I know they have more of a continuous assessment model anyway, so it is easier.

Completely different system. They have predicted grades every year. The reason for no more contact was to prevent undue influence/people gaming the system etc. I can't see an easy way around that.

downthemiddle wrote: »

Norma is out of her depth. She resembles the captain of the Titanic. Iceberg, what iceberg?

Icebergs are safe.

political analyst wrote: »

Why did the government not let schools stay open for the children of emergency workers and other key workers (delivery drivers, supermarket employees etc) last March? It was OK to do that in Britain - why not here?

Ask the government they have been geniuses so far in how they have handled every statement since coming to power

km79 wrote: »

I just don’t see how you can say we need a strict lockdown until at least June and at the same time expect students /people to believe that they will be sitting in exam rooms together in June for hours on end
The death knell is ringing now . May as well just announce the move to predicted grades to allow schools to adjust assessments plans accordingly

Ok I obviously missed that about needing a lockdown til JUNE!

They will probably run the Leaving in August as a option with the vast majority choosing predicted grades.

Very downbeat news all round this weekend tbh.

New Variants potentially worse
Vaccine Rollout slowdown
Level 5 to continue until March ? June ?

What do people think now is realistic to expect in relation to Schools reopening for kids who are not Exam Year and don't have Special/Additional Needs ?

Until yesterday I thought I was being realistic by thinking February 22nd !

I’m hoping he said after March 17th as a ‘let’s scare them now and then get loads of praise when we get it done before then’.

SusanC10 wrote: »

Very downbeat news all round this weekend tbh.

New Variants potentially worse
Vaccine Rollout slowdown
Level 5 to continue until March ? June ?

What do people think now is realistic to expect in relation to Schools reopening for kids who are not Exam Year and don't have Special/Additional Needs ?

Until yesterday I thought I was being realistic by thinking February 22nd !

I think special schools/classes/children with AEN in mainstream as well as DEIS schools will be the priority before exam students. I think next Tuesday they will announce calculated grades and most students will be happy with that.

I heard most of the MM interview and my biggest take away from it is that they just don't know how long this will last

There's so many variables; the extension of lockdown will be continued until the numbers improve. Its that simple. Anything else is conjecture.

Bananaleaf wrote: »

Verbatim from 38mins:

Brendan: From everything you've been saying here, the Leaving Cert's not happening, is it?

MM: Well, no, again, just ... I ... I ... I'm not going to say anything on here because there's enough anxiety and stress out there among young people

Brendan: But the anxiety and stress is the uncertainty like, like they'd probably like to know

MM: Ah of course, but, but you know any decision we take now has repercussions right through to June, July. I ... I ... I'm a great believer and one of the impacts on politics I observed is social media and this huge sense of a decision now or a decision in 24hours or within a week. But I get the stress and the anxiety but, anything we decide, we can decide easily enough, but we've got to work it through and work through the implications for the students, number one, in terms of their situation

Brendan: So would you prefer to wait until you had a clearer idea of how things might look in June or July, is that what you're....?

MM: No, no, we're going to engage, the department of education, the minister for education will engage with the second level partners now in respect of the Leaving Cert.

Brendan: So, we'll have a decision on that before the month is out will we?

MM: Oh yeah, certainly within the timeframe or a shorter timeframe than that ... there's a range of options that will have to be looked at, examined and we want to do the best we can in the difficult circumstances for the young people

Edited to add link to playback: https://www.rte.ie/radio/radioplayer/html5/#/radio1/21897288

Surprised they're making a call before the end of January. That would indeed suggest the LC is not happening.

check_six wrote: »

I thought 'points required' was only based on the current exam cycle results. You take all the applicants, order them by points achieved this year, and start offering down the list until you run out of places. You might have 100 places, 99 applicants who got 500+ points, and number 100 who got 250. Now your 'points required' are 250 if I understand correctly.

Do they take results from the previous year too? Deferred entry or something like that?

We were actually told (5th yr at the time) to just completely disregard college points going up/down in 2020 because of what happened with predictive grading and to fully go off 2019's point range.

alroley wrote: »

No, I feel like they'll still have to do mock exams at some stage. With examcraft being the only company running them - there could be an agreement that they are all done on the same days in each school at some time in April or something. Use those plus all other tests to get calculated grades.

I've seen poll results etc and a few friends I have around the country's schools have completely cancelled mocks. Other schools are doing them, mine are going to "have a talk about it with us" if we're not back before they're due to start (Feb 22nd) which as it stands, doesn't look likely.


Also they've actually announced that they're looking at alternatives for the LC at this point after the big ISSU survey. My dad said they'll probably announce something about it in the next week (he mentioned Tuesday but I'm not sure why) because if you keep delaying that response/clarity people want, it's only going to put people in a worse position and cause more backlash. (Although I do understand they need to talk it through, so I don't mind when stuff is announced, just as long as it's not April or something lol)

The way I personally see it right now, No go for schools to be back until February 22nd, it just still isn't safe for anyone right now, and no plan has really been put into place as it looks, talks for something substantial would take until after midterm as it stands with so much disagreement haha.

M.M. seems to be very worried about the new UK strain after he talked to Boris about it, seems that he made the March statement simply because it's probably true, I mean the UK doesn't look like it's in any position to open its schools either right now, or for a good 2-3 months. If 60% of the UK strain is here locally, and it's probably 100% there, I don't know how we'll make it work if the UK can't. Although they have a bigger population too, so that has to be taken into account. :pac:

If schools close til after St Patricks Day Im hoping they extend the school year and lessen the summer holiday period.

The whole school calender being planned around harvesting times is so out of touch.

No need for 8/10 week break in the summer. Use this time to revamp how thr school year is organised and run

Ninthlife wrote: »

If schools close til after St Patricks Day Im hoping they extend the school year and lessen the summer holiday period.

The whole school calender being planned around harvesting times is so out of touch.

No need for 8/10 week break in the summer. Use this time to revamp how thr school year is organised and run

The kids will be delighted to lose their summer