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

Mrsmum wrote: »

Continue for sure so they can present exceptional work to their teachers.

Exceptional work? Most students do not produce exceptional work. And when students get a Leaving Cert grade they get it for work produced under exam conditions without a stack of books and google to hand.

But more to the point, if they are capable of producing this exceptional work and working the remainder of the school year, then why are they not capable of sitting the exam at the end of it all?

rainbowtrout wrote: »

Yes, they want it all ways. How would he feel if he got what he wanted next month and was told, 'you can have your predicted grade, but you can't attend school for the rest of the year as you can't influence your teacher' and then found in August that he wasn't happy with that predicted grade and decided to sit the exam, and then found that the exam was based on the entire course, of which he missed the final four months of Leaving Cert????

That's the question I put to my Leaving Certs last week when it came up in our online class.

Are you getting a lot of push for predictive grades? My 2 classes are happy enough with sitting the LC as long as we are back in after midterm. Very little rumblings, more curiosity as to why there are so many contradictory stories knocking around

Mrsmum wrote: »

Ah sure it's not like they have it all figured out. Are teachers likely to be unduly influenced ? To the degree that it would be any worse than whatever way you handle this messy business now ? What does gaming the system mean in this context, getting your brilliant older sister write your assignmens is it ?

There will be some students and parents who will try. All contact was cut last May. Not possible under what you are proposing. I would not fancy four months of students handing in work that I may not be able to verify as their own work to count towards a predictive grade or perhaps skipping a class test so they can't be downgraded if they do poorly.

Plenty of students will try to game the system. It's one of the ongoing issues with the mocks. Students put the mocks online, students know what are on the mocks in advance. There's a whole host of issues there.

am_zarathustra wrote: »

Are you getting a lot of push for predictive grades? My 2 classes are happy enough with sitting the LC as long as we are back in after midterm. Very little rumblings, more curiosity as to why there are so many contradictory stories knocking around

Mine want to sit the exams generally. They see the long term benefit from it, and see the risk that predicted grades could create having missed time last year and the current teaching and learning conditions. Mocks were cancelled in my school and I had my LCs online when word broke and the first thing I was asked was if I would run a mock for them when we got back to school. They want a practice run for the real thing, and they want a back up for predicted grades if the whole thing falls apart. They know there's little data to go on.

Mrsmum wrote: »

Exceptional work was supposed to be taken as tongue in cheek. Obviously lost in translation. I think though they feel they would work really hard to impress their teachers.

So why not work hard for the exams then?

Students can't claim that they want predicted grades because the whole pandemic is too stressful and unpredictable and they are finding it hard to study and in the same breath say they will work hard to impress their teachers for a predicted grade. It sounds like they just don't want to have to deal with the reality of grades are awarded as a result of the work they put in, and if they don't do the work there are consequences.

Mrsmum wrote: »

Relax teachers. I 'm only telling you what my son and his classmates want and I bet most LC kids want. What they want and what they get are very different things.

Oh I know. I appreciate that. I just cannot understand how they are getting taken so seriously in the media with no real interrogation as to what they want and whether it is even possible.

rainbowtrout wrote: »

So why not work hard for the exams then?

Students can't claim that they want predicted grades because the whole pandemic is too stressful and unpredictable and they are finding it hard to study and in the same breath say they will work hard to impress their teachers for a predicted grade. It sounds like they just don't want to have to deal with the reality of grades are awarded as a result of the work they put in, and if they don't do the work there are consequences.

I would imagine it's that their own teachers know exactly what they have covered and grade their work accordingly whereas a state exam doesn't have that local knowledge so to speak. I do think teachers are a bit naive if they think just like last year the vast majority of students won't chose pridictive grades if offered. Human nature doesn't change drastically from one year to another.

Mrsmum wrote: »

I would imagine it's that their own teachers know exactly what they have covered and grade their work accordingly whereas a state exam doesn't have that local knowledge so to speak. I do think teachers are a bit naive if they think just like last year the vast majority of students won't chose pridictive grades if offered. Human nature doesn't change drastically from one year to another.

Last question, if you don't mind, what would you like to see happen?

History Queen wrote: »

Oh I know. I appreciate that. I just cannot understand how they are getting taken so seriously in the media with no real interrogation as to what they want and whether it is even possible.

I guess the view from the teachers side of the desk is different to a pupils. Now my son needs very high points for the course he's going for. He's a very good student and he gets consistently high marks in every exam he ever took. So it doesn't even occur to him that his teachers would give him anything but superb points. There is no risk there as far as he is concerned. Doing the LC he would expect to do well also but still there 's the feeling it could go against you. The feeling we all had once upon a time. So yeah he has a sort of a safe feeling regarding his own teachers that he doesn't have about the exam. That's the best I can explain it.

Mrsmum wrote: »

I want what's best for him but there's alot of hidden agendas so not sure what's best.

Fair enough, I'm sure every parent feels the same regarding wanting what is best for their child. Not sure there's hidden agendas as such but thanks a million for answering my questions.

It is kind of laughable that students saying they don’t want the Leaving Cert to go ahead or that they want the choice of Predicted Grades is taken seriously by the media. Sure if those questions were asked of a Leaving Cert cohort from any year ever (pre covid) you’d get the same results from the survey every year.
Shock horror students don’t want to do big sets of exams. Shock horror students want a back up if predicted grades doesn’t go their way.

TTLF wrote: »

That's a good well written insight from a parent, thank you! Mrsmum.
I'm much the same as your son, I average H1-H3 in 5 of my 7 subjects, so I'm not overly worried about my predictive grades since my course is only 400 ish and I have the DARE scheme for my condition to help I guess, It's all a bit up in the air really, just tell him to try his best to do work which I'm sure he's not having any issues with, if he's angry or rude at times, could be from stress like how I felt with the excess of assignments on me. I prefer continuous assessment but If we have to sit them, then so be it. I'm still working the same regardless.

My GF is trying to get into medicine, her course is about 600+ points, she's able to get the points as she works hard but even she wants predictive if it's available. Although she knows her results for predicted already because she was applying to UK schools and they asked for them in-case what happened last year (and now this year for them) would occur again. Think everyones opinion is very divided.

Feeling a bit bubbly now since it snowed (i adore weather )

TTLF, you'll have to come back eventually and tell us how you got on cause I'm sure I'm right in saying we're all rooting for you.

Newbie20 wrote: »

It is kind of laughable that students saying they don’t want the Leaving Cert to go ahead or that they want the choice of Predicted Grades is taken seriously by the media. Sure if those questions were asked of a Leaving Cert cohort from any year ever (pre covid) you’d get the same results from the survey every year.
Shock horror students don’t want to do big sets of exams. Shock horror students want a back up if predicted grades doesn’t go their way.

I think my issue is just seeing tons of people on Instagram and other various media outputs claiming "It's super stressful, we're not getting anything done, i cant work now, I'm super done, im not studying anymore" Like, you're still being graded at the end of the day? Keep working.

I don't mind predictive grades as I literally mentioned above, but that's no reason to slack off, you're still being graded. Like I said, I would way prefer continuous assessment until the end of the school term, no issues doing that. . I don't even have an issue sitting the LC as long as they make more alterations for those who need it etc.

Someone literally claimed today in a server I was in "I'm not gonna work for the rest of the week the anticipation is too much." and then they backtracked when I told them that was a stupid idea.

no doubt there's obviously students who will struggle with being anxious, scared and overly stressed, but a lot of students are really going OTT with this, and that's coming from a student's voice here who's in their situation :pac:

People seem to think, once predictive grades are announced, = no more work to do.

Some students still thought last year's students got 100% in all practical's and orals, even though this was changed in May to predictive also to go along with the grades as a fairer assessment. :rolleyes:

My sil is a secondary teacher. Last year she said all kinds of negative things about predictive grades. But her daughter was in LC last year and got on brilliantly and sil then said she had been hasty in her attitude to predictive grades and that actually, as a system, it worked. Any secondary teachers here with kids in LC this year or last. Would love to know what they think.

Mrsmum wrote: »

I would imagine it's that their own teachers know exactly what they have covered and grade their work accordingly whereas a state exam doesn't have that local knowledge so to speak. I do think teachers are a bit naive if they think just like last year the vast majority of students won't chose pridictive grades if offered. Human nature doesn't change drastically from one year to another.

Except that's exactly what happened last year. We, the teachers, submitted predicted grades. Applying a curve or standard to that did not happen at local level, it was applied by the DES. And while there were plenty of students happy with their results, there were plenty highlighted as unfair in the media.

Not only were we grading our students last year, we were ranking them. And you could argue that ranking is more accurate than grading. I can say Student A is better than Student B overall. Putting a mark against each of their names is more difficult. None of my grades were downgraded last year but some students in my school were downgraded and we saw situations where in a class where four H2s were awarded by the teacher, let's say an 87, 85, 83, 81, the 87 was downgraded to 79 (H3) and the others left untouched. Now if the DES has a problem with awarding four H2s to a class and only wants to award three, fair enough, but if a teacher is being trusted to award marks by ability then it's the 81 that should get marked down and not the 87, for which there is no explanation. How is that fair?