Grade Awarding 2021 - a thread.
1. For pupils and parents; it sounds daft but there isn’t much you can control right now. Teacher will play the main role in awarding grades, and there may well be some time or formal exam for subjects. But we don’t know exactly what yet.

2. What we do know is that all work pupils have done, their resilience over such a difficult time, their drive to keep going will make a difference to them. It’s never been more important for pupils to keep going, and keep engaging with the provision a school provides.
3. To our pupils? Have faith that the work you are doing will pay off. Please don’t lose heart right now. We love you lots and we all want you to excel. We are always here for you.
4. For school leaders - we need to build a year story. Right now they need a narrative that stresses the need to keep engaging in lessons. A letter every two weeks won’t get that job done. It’s never been more that pupils and parents feel connected to a school and we have clear
5. Communications cycles. Media - twitter/YouTube etc are vital tools for keeping our pupils and parents connected to school. This news cycle is vital for building a cultural expectation of what will happen when pupils set foot again in our school buildings.
6. Leader also need to consider what the next 16 school weeks look like. There will be an ‘exam season’ just not full of exams. At the point of return how will we assess pupils so they are in the best possible position? And do this without overwhelming or overworrying pupils.
7. Teachers need to keep teaching curriculum content. Where pupils are and where they need to go must follow our curricula, and it has been made clear that we may assess pupils based on where they are. We also need to support teachers whilst they are delivering remotely (and may
8. we’ll be feeling the fatigue of that sooner rather than later). Teachers need leaders to build a strong narrative to hang their ‘we keep going folks’ day to day lessons on. And we need to avoid placing them in front of parental grade pressure.
9. As always we need to take a step back from ofqual/DFE noise and focus on the day to day things we can control. Pupils, parents and staff need to feel supported, and knee jerk reaction to the consultation does help (whist we recognise flaws in any solution anyone proposes.)
10. I suppose we need to answer these questions; a) are we comfortable with our year 11 delivery, and do we know of the pupils have really learnt what we’ve taught them? b) are school leaders considering their year 11 return strategy, and where appropriate assessment fits in?
11. c)How do we build a communication cycle so no Year 11 pupils or parents feel left behind? And perhaps most importantly, d) how do we keep the focus on the day to day job? We can do this. 👍🤞

More from Education

Time for some thoughts on schools given the revised SickKids document and the fact that ON decided to leave most schools closed. ON is not the only jurisdiction to do so, but important to note that many jurisdictions would not have done so -even with higher incidence rates.


As outlined in the tweet by @NishaOttawa yesterday, the situation is complex, and not a simple right or wrong https://t.co/DO0v3j9wzr. And no one needs to list all the potential risks and downsides of prolonged school closures.


On the other hand: while school closures do not directly protect our most vulnerable in long-term care at all, one cannot deny that any factor potentially increasing community transmission may have an indirect effect on the risk to these institutions, and on healthcare.

The question is: to what extend do schools contribute to transmission, and how to balance this against the risk of prolonged school closures. The leaked data from yesterday shows a mixed picture -schools are neither unicorns (ie COVID free) nor infernos.

Assuming this data is largely correct -while waiting for an official publication of the data, it shows first and foremost the known high case numbers at Thorncliff, while other schools had been doing very well -are safe- reiterating the impact of socioeconomics on the COVID risk.

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