COVID-19 and Education

[J_Rho]

Its good to finally get some clarification about what is going to happen, my parents are telling me that even if I have SACs I should be staying home which makes sense but if I've got a SAC you best believe I'll be going to school. I remember the last week of school everyone was hyper-aware of social distancing and hygiene like we were sitting a table to ourselves where we could and we were washing our hands so frequently and the kitchenette was getting wiped down daily or twice daily so I'm honestly not worried about getting sick and if I felt sick I'd be staying home. Like with everything we are doing, and as Year 12 students feeling the need to attend school, if we get sick it's honestly bad luck given that many don't show symptoms rather than people feeling sick and being stupid and not staying home.

Also, i would hate for Year 11 marks to play a factor in this. My exam scores were horrible except for English, I'd rather repeat Year 12 :/

[Geoo]

I was asked for a source and this article was just released:
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-04-07/coronavirus-cases-increase-victoria-as-schools-reopen-next-week/12127176

But yeah my year 11 marks are not something i'm proud of and I'd hate for them to be used.

The official statement from the premier:
https://www.premier.vic.gov.au/victorian-students-to-learn-from-home-as-vce-timelines-revised/

[Stormbreaker-X]

I hear you believe me, I am not doing too well and if my current scores were used I think I would be seeing a very dark road ahead. Currently the whole say at home thing isn't working well for me. I like many others are quite new to this method and it is always best to learn at school for obvious reasons.

[Sine]

The GAT is being moved to October/November.
The exams are being moved to December.
The Atars will most likely be released at January.
If this is not possible, then GAT, SACs, and year 11 marks will be used for a derived ATAR as a last resort. (Plan B)
SAC will be reduced for all students.
Exam period may be shortened.
Exams themselves may be shortened.
There will be laptops given out to households who don't have one, and we are being told schools will open next Wednesday, however if you can stay home and do remote learning you should.

THERE will be an ATAR, and there won't be year 13.

Just announced from the premier and education minister.

I think having exams in December and ATARs released in January is a really great idea. However, Plan B is quite bad and the statistical validity of the ATARs won't be that great - I would expect a heap of students to be repeating year 12 next year if that was the case.

[Stormbreaker-X]

I think having exams in December and ATARs released in January is a really great idea. However, Plan B is quite bad and the statistical validity of the ATARs won't be that great - I would expect a heap of students to be repeating year 12 next year if that was the case.

Personally I think exams should be extending further just cuz we are uncertain how long this corona virus thing will last. I feel like life will not be normal again for at least months and we got a long road ahead.

[J_Rho]

I defs think pushing exams back is a good idea, but the talk of 'shortening sacs and exams" I am NOT keen on this idea

[Lear]

FWIW If I was in this position in year 12 I would really just be hoping for 100% study score on exams. There are of course many negatives of having your entire study score based upon your performance on a single day. However, I see exams as a great leveller that removes the difficulties of comparing SACs and SAC marking across schools. It is going to become quite murky with some SACs being cancelled, struggling to fit in other SACs and especially how you can safely conduct a cohort SAC during these times.

Full exams sometime in Dec when *hopefully* COVID-19 has blown over would be perhaps the best compromise in my view.

[S_R_K]

Its good to finally get some clarification about what is going to happen, my parents are telling me that even if I have SACs I should be staying home which makes sense but if I've got a SAC you best believe I'll be going to school.

There's no point to this, because you can not expect your teacher for that subject to be attending work.

FWIW If I was in this position in year 12 I would really just be hoping for 100% study score on exams. There are of course many negatives of having your entire study score based upon your performance on a single day. However, I see exams as a great leveller that removes the difficulties of comparing SACs and SAC marking across schools. It is going to become quite murky with some SACs being cancelled, struggling to fit in other SACs and especially how you can safely conduct a cohort SAC during these times.

Full exams sometime in Dec when *hopefully* COVID-19 has blown over would be perhaps the best compromise in my view.

Agreed, and VCAA's advice on how to run SACs has been pathetic. They are just maintaining the line that SAC implementation is a "school based decision", and providing no concrete advice / examples on how these should run / be authenticated / be moderated / etc.

Edit: and exams should not be changed from their usual format. It's important that student results accurately reflect their understanding of the study designs, because these results are used to make decisions about future learning.

Mod edit: Merged double post

[J_Rho]

There's no point to this, because you can not expect your teacher for that subject to be attending work.

Any teacher can administer a SAC, and I know the school the next town across the teachers will be working on a roster so they can support students who HAVE to attend school but also last term teachers were saying (not sure if that's still applicable) that you would need to attend school for SACS only and it would either be in groups of 5 across the day (to account for the 2m social distancing requirement) so you'd be scheduled for a time slot when you'd have to come to school and do the SAC.
It'll be interesting to see how this all ends up working out

[ashmi]

The GAT is being moved to October/November.
The exams are being moved to December.
The Atars will most likely be released at January.
If this is not possible, then GAT, SACs, and year 11 marks will be used for a derived ATAR as a last resort. (Plan B)
SAC will be reduced for all students.
Exam period may be shortened.
Exams themselves may be shortened.
There will be laptops given out to households who don't have one, and we are being told schools will open next Wednesday, however if you can stay home and do remote learning you should.

THERE will be an ATAR, and there won't be year 13.

All this sounds alright but as someone who did absolutely appallingly in Year 11, I am terrified at that "Plan B" idea. (I'm sure there are many of us who might feel the same way. My GAT scores are the worst you probably will ever see). This also brings the idea that worst-case scenario we might have to full-on study for the GAT... (really hope not). I like the idea of pushing back the exams till December and getting results in January as it means we probably can continue our studies right to the end.

When they mean 'shortening the exam' do they mean literally taking chunks out of the study design? What would happen to prerequisite subjects like Methods and Chem then? (Learn it in uni or something?). I'd rather repeat Year 12 in all honesty

[Geoo]

All this sounds alright but as someone who did absolutely appallingly in Year 11, I am terrified at that "Plan B" idea. (I'm sure there are many of us who might feel the same way. My GAT scores are the worst you probably will ever see). This also brings the idea that worst-case scenario we might have to full-on study for the GAT... (really hope not). I like the idea of pushing back the exams till December and getting results in January as it means we probably can continue our studies right to the end.

When they mean 'shortening the exam' do they mean literally taking chunks out of the study design? What would happen to prerequisite subjects like Methods and Chem then? (Learn it in uni or something?). I'd rather repeat Year 12 in all honesty

From the press conference what they were saying was that they would shorten the exams, not the study designs. So instead of the regular 2:45 minute exam, it may be shortened to 2 hours in order to fit more exams in on that day, to allow the exam period to be spread across a shorter time span instead of the normal 3 weeks. That is just from my understanding though.

I really don't want to have to study for the GAT either, so i'm with you on that.

[Bri MT]

All this sounds alright but as someone who did absolutely appallingly in Year 11, I am terrified at that "Plan B" idea. (I'm sure there are many of us who might feel the same way. My GAT scores are the worst you probably will ever see). This also brings the idea that worst-case scenario we might have to full-on study for the GAT... (really hope not). I like the idea of pushing back the exams till December and getting results in January as it means we probably can continue our studies right to the end.

When they mean 'shortening the exam' do they mean literally taking chunks out of the study design? What would happen to prerequisite subjects like Methods and Chem then? (Learn it in uni or something?). I'd rather repeat Year 12 in all honesty

Imo having a shorter exam isn't the biggest issue as it's never going to cover everything possible to be examined anyway and I'm sure they'll be careful when designing the exams to have decent breadth and depth.

I would really hope for them not to use year 11 results for study score calculation. SACs aren't all that standardised in units 3&4 but units 1&2....  better having exams in 2021 than using 1&2 results imo.

Unis would adapt for prereq knowledge if needed. In my experience with science a lot of first year was content that had already been covered in VCE (but taught significantly faster)

[TigerMum]

I'm only a Year 11 student here, so take my thoughts with a grain of salt.

I'm OK with exams being postponed to December, it seems fair enough considering the lost time at school. However, I really don't like any of the ideas being proposed for "Plan B". Using Year 11 marks would be extremely unfair; my main issue is the idea of telling students something is an S or an N and then a year later saying "oh yeah, this is going towards your uni entry score", not to mention there is minimal standardisation among different Year 11 classes within the one school, let alone across the whole state. Using GAT scores is just eww.

In general I have a strong dislike of anything that involves the judgement of teachers within the school. If the ATAR is what it's supposed to be; a tool to compare you against the rest of the state, then you should actually be marked the same way as  the rest of the state.

[whys]

There is a reason we all have absolutely appalling marks in year 11. We are never told they matter. Because they don't. If we were told year 11 marks matter, then we all would have tried so much harder and done better. Using year 11 marks is so unfair because they don't measure our true ability at all. Some tests I never even studied for because I just couldn't be bothered. No, I'm not kidding. I got 50 something percent on my chemistry exam. This wasn't because I was bad at chemistry, but it was because I didn't put any effort into the subject. Using year 11 marks as a basis for year 12 marks is the worst Plan B I have ever heard. Don't even get me started about the GAT... I did so horrendously in that too last year and I doubt I will do any better this year. If the GAT ends up mattering for everyone, which politician decided it would be a marvellous idea to place it a month before 3/4 exams? Now we have added stress to perform well on the GAT AND our 3/4 exams. Shortening exams. This is also a bad idea. Now 1 mark is worth so much more than it ever could have. Getting 90/100 and 190/200 are 2 very different things. And less SACs... now I am doomed for English. I was so ready to redeem myself in the next few SACs, but now there's less of them, what's even the point, since each one matters so much more now? Everything they have proposed seems horrible. The only thing I can remotely agree with is pushing exams back.

I wish they would make exams like 90% of our study scores or something. That would be so much better. SACs are so variable between schools that I don't think lessening them will improve anything anyways. And as of Plan B, you CANNOT standardise year 11 scores for the entire state/country and make it even remotely 'fair'. What the hell James Merlino + VCAA?

[vox nihili]

There's been a lot of hearsay around education, so the moves today will be an attempt to provide some certainty around how things are going to happen. Completely reasonable to discuss what might happen, but just remember that if it hasn't been announced, you're operating in a very uncertain environment.

To add to the statement above, VCAA have this on their website: https://vcaa.vic.edu.au/ChangesToVCEandVCAL2020/Pages/default.aspx