Fri | Jan 3, 2025

Students sitting City and Guilds to receive calculated grade

Published:Saturday | June 13, 2020 | 12:00 AM
In this 2014 photo, Soshell Williams (right) and Michael Reid, students of Titchfield High School in Portland, show off the City and Guilds top-performing English awards they received during the Rebranded Career Advancement Programme's Examination Awards luncheon at The Jamaica Pegasus hotel in New Kingston. Jamaica has adopted a calculated grading strategy to assess students sitting the exams this year in light of the COVID-19 pandemic. However, students who are privately registered and those sitting through the HEART Trust NTA, will write the Math and English exams in August (Jermaine Barnaby photo).

A calculated grading strategy is to be used to assess the performance of students who would have sat the City and Guilds exams this month.

The exams have been disrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Jamaica has joined the Cayman Islands, The Bahamas and Bermuda in adopting the strategy, which is already being used to grade students in the United Kingdom.

Under the strategy, the process for calculating results will draw on a range of evidence agreed with the various ministries and departments of education. These will include, centre assessment grades of the proposed grade each student would most likely have achieved had they been able to write the exams. It will also rely on teachers' best judgement, supported by evidence, and duly signed off by the respective heads of departments and school principals.

"The entire process will be quality assured by City & Guilds," a release from City and Guilds stated.

It added that a team of City and Guilds assessment and quality assurance experts will review each school’s submission against its historical achievement rates and other relevant data. The efforts by the expert team will include a review of the justifications provided by schools. They will also provide support to schools new to the City and Guilds assessment, which are deemed "high risk" by the UK-based body. 

“This is the same strategy that is being used to assess students in the UK registered for GCSE, A Levels, BTEC, City and Guilds and other qualifications. Under circumstances, such as obtain with this pandemic, we believe it is our teachers who are best suited to assess and recommend for certification,” the release quoted Jeremy Dahdi, director of City and Guilds International.

The assessment body said a complete set of guidance notes and requisite forms for completion were circulated to schools from June 1. 

Private candidates and students registered through the HEART Trust NTA will still be required to write exams in Math and English. The assessment is scheduled for August 27.

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