Dear Year 13 Parents and Students,

This past week has been an incredibly challenging time for everyone and the Post-16 team are very proud of your resilience and maturity during these times of uncertainty.

Please read the messages here carefully and use social media to check that your friends have also read these messages. There are some actions for you below.

• Stay safe by staying inside. Follow the news to be up-to-date with the latest recommendations. Do not socialise. Maintain a distance from others if you do have to go out.  If you can stay away from those over 70 years old, please do so for now. Remember that people of all ages can become incredibly ill. By socialising with others, you put yourself and others at risk. You can still spread the virus without showing any symptoms. 
• Stay well. Take care of your mental health. Do exercise every day if you can.  Body coach Joe Wicks is posting free daily exercise videos called “PE with Joe” on YouTube. 
• Check the school website and VLE. We will be contacting you using these platforms so please ensure you check these regularly. 
• University Choices. If you need any support with making your Firm and Insurance choices, please email Mr Jones  (email address: jjones@greenford.ealing.sch.uk)

A huge number of press articles have been released regarding how Year 13 students will receive their grades. The best source of information is always directly from the government web pages with the most recent information.

Key points that we would like to highlight for you are as follows:

1. Coursework. If you have not yet completed coursework, work on this full time. This will be important when calculating your final grades this summer. Coursework is called ‘non-exam assessed work’ in this article. 
2. Students must complete their courses. Some subjects have not completed their courses. Teachers cannot issue grades if the content has not been completed and you will be required to join any virtual lessons that are timetabled; failure to attend may impact your final teacher assessment grade. 
3. The procedure for determining final grades will be a two step process. Teachers will send the exam board a school grade for each student and the exam board will take these grades and combine them with other factors like prior attainment to determine final grades. 
4. School grades:  we have not yet been given any guidance other than this will likely take into account predicted grades, PPE grades, homework grades and practical and coursework grades.
5. Teachers do not have the final say on final grades. While the school grades will form part of your final grade, it is not the final say. As stated above, the exam board will take the school grade into consideration alongside your prior attainment from GCSE to decide upon final grades.  We do not yet know how this will work.
6. It seems it will be possible to appeal final grades. The government have stated that students can sit the exams in the autumn if they wish to. This might be too late to impact University places starting in September but if you feel your final grade does not reflect your ability, you will be allowed to take an exam to appeal this grade. This may require taking a gap year. Continuing to study independently will help you to prepare for this.  We do not yet have further details about how this will work. 
7. When is Results Day? Results Day might be in July but this may change depending on the impact of Covid-19. 
8. Nothing has been finalised yet. There will be many more press releases regarding this matter and how final grades will be calculated. For this reason, students should keep working as instructed by their teachers on the VLE so you ensure you know your subject as well as possible.

Whilst there are still some unknowns in what is going to happen over the next few weeks, some things are certain:

• Maintaining a routine is the key to maintaining your health.  Get yourself into a daily routine for school work, exercise, relaxation and sleep.
• Studying makes you smarter. Whilst you may not have exams to sit, you will be moving onto other learning, either in the workplace or at University. Lacking key knowledge or skills may put you at a disadvantage in your next placement and may hinder your success.

We will be in touch again as soon as we hear anything further from the government.  Stay in touch with us and keep us informed of how you are doing. Take care of yourselves and your families.

Many thanks,

Mr Jeremy Dudman-Jones 
Assistant Headteacher, Post-16