Weekly roundup 5 Feb 2021

Hi everyone

Hooray, January is over. It certainly felt like a longer month than normal but February will go more quickly and the days are starting to get a little lighter.

Yesterday was #TimeToTalkDay. Whether it’s a quick call, an email or a virtual coffee catch up, it has the power to make a difference, so don't forget to check in with your friends, family and colleagues. In the words of J.M Barrie, "Always try to be a little kinder than is necessary."

This week, we're sharing the responses we submitted to the DfE and Ofqual consultations on how your students will get grades this summer. Thanks to everyone who shared their views and helped to inform our responses. You can read the summary of our responses in the first article.

Our colleagues at Cambridge Assessment International Education have provided an update on the June 2021 exam series for schools and colleges who deliver the Cambridge IGCSE which you can read here.

To support you in 2021, we're delighted to offer you a free trial from our colleagues at the Centre for Evaluation and Monitoring (CEM) for their baseline assessments Yellis and Alis. Their assessments allow you to identify students' potential, set realistic and challenging targets and raise aspirations. Find out more further down.

We'd also like to hear your thoughts on the support and communication we've offered during the last year. If you'd like to feedback, please complete our short survey by 12 February.

Finally, good luck to all students receiving their Autumn 2020 GCSE exam results next week.

Wishing you all a safe and restful weekend and as always, we’re here to support you.

Yellis (for ages 14-16) helps you understand what your students know and can highlight where they need support as they prepare for their GCSEs. Yellis also gives you value-added information to help you see the effect your teaching is having, and shows the progress your students are making at school.

Alis (for ages 16-18) provides information to help you identify students' strengths and weaknesses, and see how they are likely to perform at A Level. Alis value-added data helps you understand the progress students are making, and shows you the impact your teaching is having.

Register for your free trial between now and 31st May; to test between February and May 2021, with reporting available within 48 hours.

Please note, you will need to be an OCR centre and NEW to using CEM to qualify for the offer.

We know there's a lot of uncertainty at the moment and appreciate it may be more challenging than usual for you to issue results to students. We'd like to reassure you that the process for us sending results to you hasn't changed.

There's lots of information on the results pages of our website and if you need to provide additional guidance to parents and students, you can point them to the student section of our website.

You may also find our ‘Post-results: which service do you need?’ document helpful. Our charging policy is also explained in our useful information sheet.

Active Results will not show any reports for this GCSE autumn series due to the low volume of entries making comparisons less meaningful. However, it will be available as normal on results day (candidate release) for general use and for analysis of previous exams series.

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