Examinations

YEAR-11-MOCK-EXAM-TIMETABLE-NOV-2024.pdf

GCSE, A Level, and BTEC certificates from the Summer 2023 season are now available for collection to ex Year 11 and Year 13 students. In order to collect, please email exams@lytchett.org.uk to arrange an appointment.  Appointments can be made for any school day between the times of 9.00am and 4.00pm.  If the student is unable to collect in person, they can send an email nominating a parent/carer to collect on their behalf and that person must bring photographic ID, when making an appointment.

When external examinations are scheduled during a school emergency closure, every effort will be made for the examinations to go ahead. 

Due to potential difficulties with travel arrangements it may be necessary to start the morning examination later than the time previously specified, and the afternoon examination to start earlier. The morning examinations will therefore start as close to 9.00am as possible (but no later than 9.30am) and 12.30pm (instead of 1.30pm) for afternoon examinations.

Students should in the first instance meet in the Portland Block where they will be registered. The decision on whether a student attends school will be at the discretion of the parents/guardians. Parents/guardians in this circumstance will be responsible for bringing and collecting students from school before and after the examination. Please be aware that school buses do not run on emergency closure days.

The awarding bodies do not allow schools the flexibility to change the times and date of specific examinations. If students therefore are unable to get to school safely to sit their examinations, it will be necessary for them to wait until the summer examinations series to do so.

A student who arrives late for the examination as a result of poor travelling conditions may be allowed the full time for the examination. However, in the case of a student who arrives more than one hour after the awarding body’s published starting time for an examination, the awarding body is unlikely to accept the work for marking.

In some rare circumstances the school could close during the course of the day, when only small numbers of exams and students are likely to be impacted. The school will remain partially open until examinations are completed. The decision of when to leave the school premises can be taken by the student. However, school buses will probably have left the school before the end of the examination and students will need to make appropriate arrangements for leaving the school site with their parents/guardians.

The Awarding Bodies will not refund the fees paid for any examination that is missed by students.

The government has changed the way schools assess students. At the end of their primary education (year 6), students no longer receive a level but are awarded a ‘fine points score’. Later, at the end of GCSE, subjects are gradually moving from a familiar system of A*-G grades to a new system of grading with numbers from 9-1. (Year 11 students will receive a mixture of letters (A*-G) and numbers (9-1) this year, depending on the subjects they study.) In addition to this, the structure of GCSEs has been made more rigorous and standards have been raised; a good ‘pass’ has been moved from a grade C to a new grade 5 (which equates
to a high C / low B in the old system).

Consequently, secondary schools have been given complete freedom over the way they assess and set targets for students in years 7 to 9 (this is known as Assessment without Levels). At Lytchett Minster School we feel it is vitally important for students to receive new targets as soon as possible in order to prepare them for the new GCSEs. 

Changes to Years 7 to 9

The old system of levels (5a, 5b, 5c) will no longer be used and teaching content has also changed. To ensure that we all monitor progress effectively, the school has developed a new approach to KS3 assessment which uses five ‘threshold’ measures. These are:

• Exceptional
• Advanced
• Secure
• Developing
• Foundation

We look carefully at what students have achieved prior to arriving at Lytchett (i.e. their KS2 results) and set an expected ‘threshold’ as a consequence. This threshold aligns with the grades we expect students (based on national models of progression from KS2 to KS4) to achieve at GCSE. Students will be expected to achieve at least the targeted threshold in each of years 7, 8 and 9. They can of course move up a threshold but would not normally be expected to fall below it. Teachers will give regular feedback to students comparing their performance against these thresholds and we will continue as a school to report to parents on three occasions throughout the year indicating their child’s progress.

What do the 'Thresholds' look like?

The table below demonstrates how we will use the KS2 levels that were awarded for current year 8 and 9 students to set a threshold and how a student nationally would typically progress towards their GCSEs. New Year 7 thresholds will be set according to the fine points score awarded by their primary schools. This will happen a little later in the Autumn term.