THE ONE WHERE OFQUAL SCREWS US OVER:
(WEEK 03)
Okay so technically this happened at the beginning of last week but I think I was so deeply traumatised by the whole event I have already repressed the memories deep, deep down (and for good reason).
Let me set the scene for you all:
At the end of November I finally finished my 20 hours of computer science controlled assessment/coursework (worth 20% of our final grade). As you can imagine, I was so happy that I had finally finished it as it basically took up my life for a whole term. When I wasn't doing actually work towards my 20 hours I was planning things and practicing at home. Combined with the fact that I missed so many lessons for various musical activities and then had to catch up at lunch and after school (I literally didn't have time to eat lunch for 2 weeks) it's safe to say that I was thrilled to finally have my life back.
That is until I arrived home after school on the following Monday to find this news article:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-42138037For those who can't be bothered to follow the link, the headline reads:
"Computer science GCSE in disarray after tasks leaked online"
Oh. Dear.
So after some further investigation I finally found my way to ofqual's website and on it was a proposal.
A very long proposal detailing exactly how they planned to deal with all the 'cheating' in the controlled assessment:
By making it worth 0% of our final grade.
As you can imagine I was somewhat concerned (read: apocalyptically panicked) by this latest development. I don't want all my hours of work to go to waste. It wasn't just 20 hours, that was a whole terms worth of computer science lessons, where we could have been learning other things, completely wasted if they go ahead and scrap our coursework.
My immediate reaction was to research this proposed change to the GCSE course as much as possible. After reading their unnecessarily long proposal (I mean 26 pages?! Really?) I have come to the following conclusions:
1) They have already made their minds up despite several proposed ways of dealing with the issues they have uncovered.
b) Nothing I can say or do will have any bearing on their decision.
3) I definitely changed my numbering system halfway through this list.
4) Basically, were screwed.
Now I'm not one to go quietly and I fully intend on fighting this decision right up until they officially announce their decision (the 8th of January - don't even get me started on how badly they've timed this whole thing and how irritating it is that we have to wait SO long to find out their decision) and long afterwards if I think it will help.
So what am I going to do?
The first thing I did was fill out a response form on the ofqual website. Now whilst this will almost certainly do nothing, it was very therapeutic getting all my pent up rage out at the people/body responsible for this mess.
Me and two others in my computer science class have organised a meeting with our head master to educate him on the whole issue and to help him write a letter on behalf of us and the school to ofqual and OCR.
As I am in a position where I have the power to try to have their decision changed then I sure as hell am going to.
Anyway updates will follow as soon as I know more; were meeting with the head on Thursday (day after tomorrow) so we'll see.
Thanks for reading if you struggled on this far!
-Melody