Maximising Achievement with Y13 in the final 15 weeks before the 2023 examinations in Cymru / Wales

A companion piece to our Alps webinar. 

At Alps, we are aware you are facing significant challenges in 2022-23.

• Y13 students took no GCSE examinations in 2020.
• They are going to be assessed by examinations in 2023.
• Qualifications Wales have announced ‘the intention is for this year’s results to fall broadly midway between the 2019 and 2022 results.’
• That will require a significant drop in higher grades nationally, roughly 7% at A*-B & A*-A.

• Schools and colleges are teaching the full content of qualifications to students.
• Advanced information will be released for the summer 2023 exam series on the 6th February.
• Replicating the grades that you achieved in 2022 may still be challenging in 2023.

We are here to support you with our Top Tips and Connect: 

1. Make sure sustaining / improving performance at A*-B+ is a priority in your school and college.
2. Some students will have a better chance of securing or improving their AS grade at A Level if they re-sit an AS unit in 2023.
3. Use Connect to ensure you are on top of the subjects, sets, student groups and students who need support to achieve their Post-18 goals.
4. Focus on raising outcomes by concentrating on improving the performance of targeted underachieving students in specific subjects. Pay most attention to your largest cohort subjects that will have the biggest impact on this cohort’s outcomes and destinations, your results and your Alps VA..
5. Ask HODs to run department meetings based on:
   • Past papers and mark schemes
   • Command words
   • 2022 Examiner reports – identifying those ‘silver bullets’ that will improve grades
   • Share this invaluable information with your students.

6. Ensure Mock exams are marked to identify individual and collective learning gaps (skills / knowledge) so that these can be addressed, re-assessed, and closed before the summer.

In Connect:

1. Discuss with Heads of Department and teachers which students on their course have the greatest potential to improve their mock / predicted grades. Use the ‘What-if’ tool in Connect to demonstrate the impact on subject VA of those students achieving a higher grade.
2. Use our comparison and filter tools to understand how the student groups in each subject or set are predicted to perform in terms of disadvantage, gender, ethnicity, and PA.
3. We recommend a sharp focus on the predicted grades of students with higher GCSE PA. Use our PA comparison tool to check this out.
4. Use our Monitoring Accuracy tools to identify:
   • which subjects predicted most accurately in 2022
   • which subjects are predicting outcomes most different to previous monitoring grade-point or are predicting much higher outcomes / higher VA than in 2022?
5. Identify students who are underachieving in two or more subjects for holistic intervention?

Register for our free webinar on 17^th January – BOOK HERE 

If you need support from Alps do not hesitate to be in touch at [email protected]