Matt N
TS Member
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Hi guys. Due to lockdown 1.0, exams were scrapped for the first time in modern history in summer 2020, in a move that would previously have been thought utterly unprecedented. Instead, GCSE and A Level students were awarded teacher-assessed grades.
As we enter 2021, another exam season is soon going to be upon us. In spite of the fact that Gavin Williamson and the Department of Education released measures that will be taken for the 2021 exams, the topic is still a very contentious one among those in education; students and teachers alike all have differing opinions on whether they should go ahead. With the new COVID variant rapidly taking hold and causing a new (albeit currently brief) round of school closures, calls to scrap exams in 2021 are once again increasing. So my question to you today is; do you think that exams should go ahead in 2021?
I probably shouldn’t question the government on this, as they know far more than me, but as someone who’s due to sit A Level exams in June 2021, I would personally quite like it if they didn’t go ahead this year. As much as exams offer an opportunity for you to really prove yourself in a practical setting, and do open up a window for huge improvement quite late on, I’ll admit to you all now that the thought of sitting my A Levels in June genuinely terrifies me. Even though I’d say I’ve done more revision for my A Levels than I had done for my GCSEs by this point in 2019 (I’ve tried to keep up a pretty consistent revision effort all the way through my A Levels), I feel considerably less prepared for my A Levels than I did for my GCSEs, personally, and I’m far more scared about sitting A Levels than I was about sitting GCSEs, even though GCSEs were my first experience of proper exams. I just worry that if I take exams, I’ll completely mess them up and disappoint everybody. As much as remote learning may not seem like it would have much of an effect on the face of it, I think it had a huge effect on me; as much as I tried to do as much work as I possibly could during the first lockdown, I still feel as though the areas I taught myself during lockdown are quite substantial gaps in my subject knowledge.
But as I say, the government and the DfE know far more about this than me, and I really shouldn’t question them!
But what are your thoughts?
As we enter 2021, another exam season is soon going to be upon us. In spite of the fact that Gavin Williamson and the Department of Education released measures that will be taken for the 2021 exams, the topic is still a very contentious one among those in education; students and teachers alike all have differing opinions on whether they should go ahead. With the new COVID variant rapidly taking hold and causing a new (albeit currently brief) round of school closures, calls to scrap exams in 2021 are once again increasing. So my question to you today is; do you think that exams should go ahead in 2021?
I probably shouldn’t question the government on this, as they know far more than me, but as someone who’s due to sit A Level exams in June 2021, I would personally quite like it if they didn’t go ahead this year. As much as exams offer an opportunity for you to really prove yourself in a practical setting, and do open up a window for huge improvement quite late on, I’ll admit to you all now that the thought of sitting my A Levels in June genuinely terrifies me. Even though I’d say I’ve done more revision for my A Levels than I had done for my GCSEs by this point in 2019 (I’ve tried to keep up a pretty consistent revision effort all the way through my A Levels), I feel considerably less prepared for my A Levels than I did for my GCSEs, personally, and I’m far more scared about sitting A Levels than I was about sitting GCSEs, even though GCSEs were my first experience of proper exams. I just worry that if I take exams, I’ll completely mess them up and disappoint everybody. As much as remote learning may not seem like it would have much of an effect on the face of it, I think it had a huge effect on me; as much as I tried to do as much work as I possibly could during the first lockdown, I still feel as though the areas I taught myself during lockdown are quite substantial gaps in my subject knowledge.
But as I say, the government and the DfE know far more about this than me, and I really shouldn’t question them!
But what are your thoughts?
