Year 10 Isolation and Mock Exams

17^th June 2021

Dear Parents and Carers,

You have recently been contacted to advise that your child must isolate. As a school we share your frustrations during this important time in Year 10 with the mock examinations beginning on Monday, 22^nd June. With this in mind, I am writing to you to explain the arrangements for your child to complete their mock examinations and how we will thoroughly support pupils to not be disadvantaged through isolation.

Your child will complete their examinations on Google Classroom. At the time of the exam, the paper will be uploaded and your child will have a deadline to submit their answers electronically. These deadlines will be in line with the times the pupils will be completing examinations in school. This is to ensure that the exam questions and papers are kept confidential and neither your child nor the pupils in school will be able to see the questions before anyone else.

Please read the full instructions below carefully:

• Your child will need a fully working laptop (not an iPad or mobile) to complete examinations and reliable WiFi. We have a significant supply of laptops to loan out and therefore please email headofyear10@deantrustardwick.co.uk urgently should you need to borrow one from school.
• Your child will need to log onto their DTA account and access Google Classroom. The examinations will be posted in the classroom called ‘Yr10 Summer Mock Examinations’ and the code is k5hhqkt.
• The timetable enclosed outlines on which day and time the papers should be completed by your child. They must be completed at these times exactly and submitted by the deadline.
• Your child will need to complete only the examinations for subjects which they are taking. They will also have to select the correct tier of paper. On the timetable there are also additional subject specific instructions for examinations if applicable.
• There are certain subject examinations which cannot be completed remotely due to the nature of the tasks. These are Art and Design, Computer Science, and all GCSE language listening examinations. These examinations will be completed by pupils upon their return to school.
• Whilst completing the examinations, it is very important that your child is supervised and not given access to any revision materials (online or paper copies), text books, exercise books or any other material which would not be permitted in a regular exam. For examinations which have a spelling, punctuation and grammar mark (SPG), this will be awarded based on a teacher assessment of the pupils’ ability because it would be unfair to award an SPG mark where a pupil has had access to automatic spelling and grammar correction on Google.
• If your child does not submit the exam response within the given time onto Google Classroom, unfortunately, they will receive an ‘A’ for absent on their mock exam results sheet but we will provide you with a teacher assessed grade.

Mr Hull, the Head of Year 10, will be inviting you to an online briefing on Friday, 18^th June at 2.30pm, during which you will have the opportunity to ask any further questions. I would highly recommend that you try to attend this meeting.

Finally, I must reiterate how important it is for your child to complete their examinations given the amount of time away from face to face education this year. It is crucial that as a school we can get an accurate picture of each child’s current attainment under exam conditions so that we can plan for effective future teaching and intervention. The end of Year 10 mock results directly influences teachers’ predictions of final GCSE and BTEC outcomes which are submitted alongside post-16 applications, therefore accurate evidence of attainment is vital.

I wish to thank you for your continued patience and support during these challenging times and wish your child the best of luck for their mock examinations.

Yours sincerely

Miss S Whittington

Assistant Headteacher and Careers Lead