Incredible GCSE successes reflecting all their hard work
Today our students opened up an incredible set of GCSE results that reflect five years’ of dedicated studying. Whilst they were not given the opportunity to demonstrate their knowledge through formal examinations, they were still about to receive the grades they so richly deserve.
The results highlight how TA’s results continue to improve across the board year on year and I could don’t be more proud of all of our students. Once again the school’s students have far outperformed national averages.
We have great pride in the wide range of course that we offer which enables our students to pursue subjects they have a passion for, in addition to our academic curriculum.
I, along with the rest of the staff, are very proud of our students and we look forward to welcoming the majority of them back into the Sixth Form in a couple of weeks.
As you may know, this year’s GCSE results had to be awarded differently from usual, after exams were unable to go ahead due to Covid-19. Schools were asked to use their professional experience to make a fair and objective judgement of the grades they believed a student would have achieved had they sat their exams this year, and to submit these centre-assessed grades (CAGs) to the relevant exam board.
Groups of teachers and leaders in each subject worked together to discuss and agree the centre-assessed grade for each student. They took into account a wide range of available evidence, including class work, mock exams and other records of student performance.
The intention was that the exam boards would then moderate the CAGs, to check that schools and colleges had approached this task consistently, before providing students with their final calculated grades. Unfortunately, as you will no doubt be aware, the method they used to do this proved problematic, and was likely to lead to many grades being unfairly downgraded.
The government, therefore, made the decision that GCSE and A level students would be awarded whichever was higher for each subject – their CAG or their calculated grade. This is what the grades you’ll receive are based on.
