Should exams for 2021 be cancelled? England

Poll

Should exams for 2021 be cancelled? England

Keri00Summers

(edited 4 years ago)

Reply 1

PurpleVet

Original post by Keri00Summers

Please write down your notes on what you think and why?
Wales and Scotland have cancelled their exams and having their grades based on class assessments. Do you think it would be fair for those doing A Level in England applying for universities? How would universities know who to give a place when some may not do exams while some may have?

I think exams should be cancelled because some students may have not gotten the education they need when they have to self-isolate. This also affects their performance if they don't know what they are learning or doing for the exams. I also believe that those who are applying for unis this year - it wouldn't be fair on those who have done the exams and those who didn't do the exams. I also believe that last year shouldn't be repeated where many students have lost their place for unis.

If any of you are doing A levels and GCSEs in England, what is your opinion on this? And why?

I think exams should still go ahead. Firstly Scotland have only cancelled their equivalent of GCSEs, they have not cancelled their equivalent of A levels. Wales are still doing some type of exams and will be given a predicted grade based off that, which will be more accurate than the algorithm and CAGS given last year.
I don’t think it would be fair to cancel exams because some people achieve higher than their predicted grades and you cannot guarantee that the grade you are given is representative of your ability if exams are cancelled. Also if exams are cancelled now, many people will become very unmotivated and not see the point in still putting effort into their a levels.
Yes we have had a disrupted education this year but I think cancelling exams would just be a further disruption and is a very extreme action, reducing the amount of content would be a much better solution rather than cancelling exams completely.
Finally, universities don’t give out places based purely on grades, for many courses the majority of applicants will be given an unconditional offer because the university wants to fill the places. For the more competitive courses the application process involves interviews, assessments and questionnaires, so unis will give out their offers depending on this as well, not just grades alone.