Centre Assessed Grades in Physical Education 2021

What are Centre Assessed Grades?

Centre Assessed Grades are the grades which the teacher believes that their "student would most likely have achieved if they had sat exams this summer and completed any non-exam assessment. It is based on your good understanding of your own students’ abilities" (OCR). These grades are expected to be formulated using the teacher's professional judgement, as well as assessments such as tests, mock exams and exam-board-specific work produced by the student with no support.

UPDATE (25/2/21) : The government has released more information about how Centre Assesses Grades are going to be awarded. This information can be found at: https://www.gov.uk/government/news/teacher-assessed-grades-for-students

What's the difference between Centre Assessed and Predicted Grades?

The term 'predicted grade' is somewhat misleading and its meaning depends a lot on context.

Most commonly, the term is used with regards to UCAS applications. UCAS define 'predicted grade' as "the grade of qualification an applicant’s school or college believes they’re likely to achieve in positive circumstances. These predicted grades are then used by universities and colleges, as part of the admissions process, to help them understand an applicant’s potential".

Within schools, especially at KS4, the term 'predicted grade' tends to be used with a variety of meanings, depending on the particular school. However, it would seem that, in the majority of cases, this term is used when reporting data to signify the grade which a teacher believes their student will achieve in their GCSE, BTEC or NVQ should circumstances remain the same.

How is this different from a Centre Assessed Grade? In all honesty, the actual grade probably isn't! It is worth noting, however, that a predicted grade (in the pre-COVID era) required no evidence from the teacher, whereas the Centre Assessed Grades of 2021 will require plenty!

What counts as evidence for a Centre Assessed Grade?

Although, at the time of writing, the Government is still in the proposal phase, reports from the Department for Education currently list the following as possible sources of evidence for Centre Assessed Grades:

Exam-board-devised papers (see further information below)
Teacher-devised assessments
Mock-examination results
Substantial candidate work (which relates to the qualification specification and where the school or college are confident it was completed with no support or no external support)
Non-examined assessment (NEA) work (practical performance or coursework).

How can you calculate a Centre Assessed Grade?

There has been no mention as yet on exact calculations, although it has been made clear that there will be no grade boundaries published by exam boards. We would hope there will be further details provided by the exam boards by the Easter holidaus.

The government suggests the Centre Assessed Grades will be a blend of practical performance, coursework, school-based assessments and exam-board-devised papers, with a proposed greater weighting towards the 'exam-board-devised papers'. From the Physical Education standpoint, you must think about the idea of changing the weighting of the NEA element of the course (see below).

It is important to note, however, that any teacher-devised assessments should be supported by mark schemes in order to guarantee consistent marking within a school or college. Equally, that teacher-devised assessments used to support the final grade should be used at the same time as the exam-board papers would be taken, to avoid any students being unfairly advantaged or disadvantaged by the timing of when they are assessed.

The final element to consider is the ranking of your students. Again, whilst this hasn't been confirmed, it appears the government may ask for a similar ranking system to last year's. For example, if you have six grade-7 students, you must rank them from strongest to weakest. This must be done for all students for whom you have awarded the same grade.

What is happening with the 2021 exam series?

The Government are proposing that grades should be created by combining mock exams, coursework, other completed pupil work (such as in-class tests and essays) and finally optional use of questions provided by exam . The Department for Education is proposing that the exam boards should use in their papers, "questions that are similar in style and format to those in normal exam papers".

In terms of the content covered in these exam papers, the Department for Education says that teachers can have some choice of the topics on which their students could answer questions to allow them to take account of content that has not been fully taught due to the disruption. Therefore, if in your class you haven't yet covered the sociocultural issues in sport, then you can customise papers to adjust for this.

The EverLearner's ExamSimulator can in fact do exactly this: ExamSimulator allows teachers to design personalised exam-board-specific papers, choosing only those topics their students have covered. To find out more, you can book a demo here:

How is consistency between staff and schools/colleges to be ensured?

Obviously, a big challenge of employing Centre Assessed Grades, is ensuring consistency between teachers within a school or college and, of course, between schools and colleges nationally. Fortunately, there will be no repeat of the dreaded 'algorithm' debacle from 2020 (read more here: "A-levels and GCSEs: How did the exam algorithm work?") and it appears the Government have finally decided to actually trust the professionals to do their jobs effectively!

The proposal from the Department for Education highlights the need for robust mark schemes when using teacher assessments to ensure consistency within schools or colleges and it is suggesting that "students assessed with and without the use of the exam board papers should be assessed as late as possible in the academic year".

The Government have said that past exams and exam questions can be used to create exams for your students. There will not be any new questions created in time for the summer. They have also stated that:

Will Centre Assessed Grades be adjusted as they were in 2020?

The short answer is no: Centre Assessed Grades won't be adjusted as per the 2020 algorithm disaster.

Current proposals are suggesting that it will be up to exam boards to quality assure the approach taken by each centre and that exam boards should also work together to avoid imposing unnecessary burden on schools and colleges. Exam boards will be responsible for verifying that schools and colleges are complying with the guidance. Exam boards will also conduct sampling of the evidence provided by teachers at subject level (in other words, external moderation). It is important to stress that this has been mentioned in reference to the exam sitting and not to practical performance. This doesn't mean it won't happen, but it seems unlikely.

Exam boards, it appears, will have the power to refuse to assign a grade if they feel a school or college has not used adequate quality-assurance methods or that the exam-board requirements were not followed. A grade will only be assigned once the school or college has provided further supporting evidence. If the exam board feels the evidence does not support the grade awarded, they would request that the head of school or college makes changes to the grade before resubmitting it.

Where can I find official guidance on Centre Assessed Grades?

The government has released more information about how Centre Assesses Grades are going to be awarded. This information can be found at: https://www.gov.uk/government/news/teacher-assessed-grades-for-students

It is important to note that this is still not conclusive information about how the process will exactly work. The government say that there will be further guidance released by exam boards at some point before the Easter holidays.

How can I use existing evidence for Centre Assessed Grades?

Any evidence you have been collecting on your students over the past year and a half definitely can be considered when deciding a final grade. The advice at the moment is that, in order to ensure consistency nationwide and in order to avoid disadvantaging certain students, evidence from assignments should take place at approximately the same time as the sitting of the exam papers and should be the most heavily weighted.

Of course, as per any task involving reporting progress or attainment, knowing your students is key. However, given that some of us may not have been face to face with out students for at least four months, this will be more of a challenge than usual. Knowing (and trusting) how well students have engaged with lessons and classwork during lockdown will be VITAL.

Physical Education does of course come with the additional challenge of the Non-Examination Assessments (NEAs) and providing evidence of this in 2021 will also prove to be an extra hurdle to overcome. See below for further details on this element of Centre Assessed Grades.

What is happening with Non-Examination Assessments (NEAs)?

So far, the Government is proposing the following: "Students this year should be given time to complete their non-exam assessments, to contribute to the evidence teachers use to determine the grade the student should receive. We propose that the exam boards should provide guidance on adjustments that could be made to the way non-exam assessments are completed, to account for current circumstances." The announcement by the government (25th Feb) makes no specific reference to NEA; however, we expect further guidance to come from the exam boards before the Easter holiday.

They are also suggesting that teachers make their final assessments on performance in late May or early June. Obviously for PE, a subject in which many students' non-exam assessment involves team sports or sports that they have not been able to practise or take part in for over a year, this leads to additional complications.

What we recommend is to begin collating all the evidence you have so far from your students and what weighting there is for externally vs internally assessed activities. For students offering externally assessed activities, see what evidence you have at the moment and see whether the student can provide you with any other historical evidence. Normally, we would like the evidence to be as recent as possible but, in this situation, this may well not be possible. For sports that you are assessing internally, consider how you are going to structure this for your return to school. With the practical moderation almost certainly not occurring this year, you will have time to prepare your students theoretically but also practically.

Exam boards have provided their own guidance already on how to submit evidence for the NEAs, as it goes without saying that the traditional moderation won't be happening in 2021. This guidance can be found here:

GCSE	A Level	Vocational
OCR GCSE AQA GCSE EdExcel GCSE WJEC GCSE Eduqas GCSE	OCR A Level AQA A Level EdExcel A Level WJEC A Level Eduqas A Level	BTEC Sport VCERT Cambridge Nationals

What are the benefits of using Centre Assessed Grades?

It is often the case that, when faced with something new, the temptation is to focus on all the negative aspects. It could also be argued that there are very few positives to be found in the major disruption to students' learning and examinations resulting from the coronavirus pandemic which has taken the lives of millions of people worldwide. However, we shall try to find some:

Fairer opportunities for those students who typically underperform in highly pressured exam conditions
Teachers being trusted to grade their own students (no algorithm fiasco!)
Teachers having the flexibility to adapt their practical weighting this year (this could be both a positive and a negative depending on the individual)
The proposal of teacher-selected exam questions based on the content covered, which is potentially fairer

What are the drawbacks of using Centre Assessed Grades?

The negatives surrounding education and COVID-19 are far too many to list here and far too demoralising. We shall, therefore, focus only on those which relate directly to the use of CAGs in 2021:

Difficulties with administering exams for students working remotely: how can we really be sure they're not getting help from somewhere?
Issues surrounding consistency and fairness both within schools and colleges, and between schools and colleges nationwide;
Lack of clarity on timings and methodology, adding extra stress for both teachers and students;
Challenges of finding evidence for students who have spent at least two out of their five terms at KS4 studying remotely;
Challenges of finding evidence for the non-examined assessment for students who have not been able to practise or their perform their sport for over 12 months;
"Personalised" exams for each student or class could prove very time consuming.

Centre Assessed Grades in 2021

What evidence do you need in Physical Education?