Our son is in Y11. He should have been taking his exams this summer, and then should have had a carefree summer doing ‘stuff’ before starting his A-levels in September. However, this is 2021, and we are in the middle of a global pandemic (how I hope this is the middle or even towards the end, if we aren’t halfway yet, heaven help us all). He missed a term of face to face education in the summer, there were some periods of isolation in the autumn term – of teachers as well as students – and now he’s missing face to face education again. His school have been great, lessons delivered on Teams and a full curriculum has been offered, including games.

A proactive school, however good they are, cannot give children the same experience as face to face education. If we had chosen to home school or un-school, we would normally be able to have trips and excursions and adventures to back up learning, but even this would have been stopped by 2020 and now 2021. Whatever method of schooling or unschooling we may have chosen, the pandemic will have had a huge, unexpected impact.

Y11s due to take exams in England this summer, and Y13s too, were told that exams would go ahead. For definite. Without a doubt. There would be catch up exams in July, just in case, but there would be exams. This was stated in September, November, December……and then a term into teaching and catching up on missed work when schools could have been prepping for classroom assessments (like they have in Wales and Scotland) it was announced that exams wouldn’t take place for GCSEs and A levels, unless you are taking iGCSEs when you will be, for now at least. Vocational qualifications are another s**tstorm that I’m not going into in this post, but for parents of students doing vocational qualifications, and to college lecturers and school teachers trying to make sense of it all – I see you, I support you, and feel free to message me for the next instalment so I can tell your story too.

Online learning, remote learning or whatever other things schools and parents are trying to sort out undoubtedly has an impact on our children. Don’t blame the teachers – they are teaching key workers’ children face to face, sending out work or online teaching for those who can stay at home, and then many are sorting out their own children’s learning when they get home. Our children are missing out on play, conversations, asking questions, talking to their peers – and in our son’s case, he’s missing out on card games at lunchtime. This lockdown feels harder – the evenings are dark, we’ve done this before, every day is the same, it’s just so boring, there’s no end in sight, I can’t escape – all things I’ve heard from teens over the last week or so.

But back to the Y11s and Y13s, if that’s OK? Have grades dropped? For us, the grades now are not as high as they were before lockdown started, but I’m not surprised. They missed a term of face to face learning. They then went back into school and had a term of trying to catch up while being assessed, just in case the exams weren’t going to go ahead as promised, and then more catching up, and not really much exam technique as you can’t write about what you have yet to learn, but some more assessments because, you know, just because the DfE and Ofqual say the exams are going ahead doesn’t mean they necessarily will.

There is a consultation process (link here) and I have filled it out. There isn’t an option to ask how they are going to assess the teacher’s grades and adjust the grade boundaries (as happens with exams every year). If there are externally set mini tests, how will Ofqual decide what percentage makes a 9, 6, or 3, for example, if they don’t know what the students have covered? The teachers will need to assess work – and maybe the result of the consultation will mean that my worries are unfounded, but……

Students have not learnt everything they would have learnt in a normal GCSE course. The impact of Covid has impacted them all, but in different ways. For us, our son has been more chatty and communicative, but his motivation to learn has decreased, his enjoyment of lessons has decreased and the monotony of a school run that’s walking downstairs to the lounge is getting to him.

Even though I’ve looked at and completed the consultation document, what’s occurred to me this afternoon is that no one seems to be taking into account how demotivated and sad these kids are.

So, how can schools assess students at the moment? If school mark work under 2019 guidelines and mark schemes, they probably won’t be doing as well as they should, but if they are lenient and take Covid into account, they could get penalised in the summer grades if they are audited! And it’s not just Y13, 11 or 10, there are so many of our children who are struggling. This year’s Y9s are missing the start of their GCSE curriculum, and I don’t know how far back we go before this won’t have an impact.

Yes, children are resilient. Yes, they will catch up long term. Yes, this is something we have never seen or experienced before. But they are children and teens, and this is really, really tough on them (& us as parents, carers and teachers). I don’t know what the answer is, but I know we haven’t got it right yet. I hope the consultation brings a solution that most of us are happy with and is fair to our children and their teachers. If it doesn’t, I am going to start emailing, writing, ringing and telling as many people as I can find to make some noise and make it fair for our children. If it comes to this, who’s with me?