TO: PARENTS OF CANDIDATES REGISTERED for IGCSE OR A LEVEL EXAMINATIONS with UNITY HIGH SCHOOL as ‘PRIVATE CANDIDATES’
Dear Parents
I hope that you and all your family continue to stay safe and well, whether they are here in Sudan or in another part of the world.
The Update attached below provides an indication of Cambridge’s intention to provide grades for registered students unable to sit for IGCSE or A levels this summer. It is clear that they want to be as fair as possible to students and also to ensure that certificates will hold the same value as for any other year. They have indicated that schools should start to ‘consider the evidence they will be able to gather’ to support Cambridge in allocating grades for IGCSE and A Level subjects.
Cambridge has also said that they will update schools again on 7th April about the process for this.
The information received from Cambridge makes it very clear that candidates registered as ‘private candidates’ must have their work validated by the registering centre;
“Where a candidate has not been taught at the centre handling their entry, centres must carefully investigate what evidence of the candidate’s work can be obtained and authenticated. Evidence from a candidate’s previous school is likely to be acceptable. Evidence from parents or from the candidates themselves should not be accepted. Evidence from tutors needs to be considered in the individual context.”
This means that for candidates who are not registered as a Unity High School student, it will be very difficult for us to validate the candidate’s work, because of the requirements set by Cambridge. For those candidates with only a private tutor or from a private centre it will not be possible to
validate their work and so such candidates are recommended to withdraw from the May/June series of examinations and then re-register for a later series such as the November 2020 series.
In addition, today, a meeting was held with the Ministry for Further Education and the Sudan universities admissions representative. It was agreed verbally (there is nothing in writing at this stage) that the proportion of places reserved each year for students from international schools will be maintained until the results from the October / November 2020 examinations series are published. However, it will still depend on the individual university as to when candidates will be admitted. The Sudanese universities will not accept the certificates awarded by Cambridge.
All candidates entered for the May/June 2020 examinations series need to make the following decision:
1. To accept the certificate as awarded by Cambridge
Grades will be awarded by Cambridge in collaboration with evidence of the student’s work from school. For further details please see attached letter from Cambridge.
Please be aware that Sudanese universities will not accept these certificates. Please confirm your decision to take this option by emailing cambridge.certificate@unityhighschool.org before 12.00 noon on 7th April and providing the candidate’s full name and Candidate registration number.
2. To withdraw your child from the May/June 2020 examinations and have the option to register him/her for a later series of examinations, such as the October/November series.
Please confirm your decision to take this option by emailing withdraw@unityhighschool.org before 12.00 noon on 7th April and providing the candidate’s full name and Candidate registration number.
Requests to withdraw cannot be accepted after this time.
If we do not receive a response from you by the deadline of 12.00 noon on 7th April, we will presume that you are accepting the certificate that Cambridge will award.
Thank you for your understanding in these unprecedented and unpredictable times.
Please stay safe and stay positive.
With all good wishes
Mrs Fiona Beevers
Principal
Update for Cambridge schools on May/June exam series 2020 – 31 March 2020
To all Cambridge International Schools worldwide, Cambridge Assessment International Education would like to reiterate our thanks to schools for your support and feedback on our decision not to hold our international examinations in the May/June 2020 series, and to the updates we sent on 26 March. As stated in our email to schools on 26 March, we are writing today with further updates on providing grades for students, private candidates, our discussions with universities and other questions. We are endeavoring to provide as much clarity as we can as quickly as possible. In these unprecedented circumstances, it is important for us to make sure all our students obtain the fairest outcome possible, with the quality and integrity they would expect from Cambridge. Thank you for your patience. Further details will be sent on Tuesday 7 April, as we explain below.
Providing grades for students
It is vital to Cambridge International to ensure that all our students studying in many different countries and contexts around the world receive a fair, valid and globally recognized qualification.
The process we will use to provide grades for students will be a collaborative one with schools.
The decision on grades to be awarded to candidates will be made by Cambridge, using our own evidence combined with evidence from schools.
Our approach will be to ask schools to collaborate with us as we make evidence-based decisions about grades for each candidate in each subject they have entered for in the May/June 2020 exam series for Cambridge IGCSE, Cambridge O Level, Cambridge International AS & A Level and Cambridge Pre-U.
We are now asking schools to consider what evidence they will be able to gather to support these decisions. The evidence should consist of examples of work candidates have done to prepare for their May/ June 2020 exams.
The types of evidence that might be available could include but will not be limited to:
- mock exams
- coursework (complete or incomplete)
- assignments
- AS Level results for ‘staged-route’ A Level candidates
- grades in previous sittings for candidates re-taking exams.
You do not need to set students fresh work to gather evidence – for example, you do not need to set new mock papers, set assignments or ask them to complete unfinished coursework.
We understand that centres may not be able to access all of this evidence remotely. At this point, we ask centres to begin to consider what evidence they have available.
All of the evidence that you gather must be authenticated (that is, your centers must be satisfied that it is the candidate’s own unaided work). Heads of center will be responsible for vouching for the authenticity of the evidence gathered about every candidate.
Please do not send any of your evidence to us at this time.
In due course you will be asked to process the evidence you have gathered. More details of the processing we will ask you to do will be shared on Tuesday 7 April.
We know that gathering and processing this evidence will take time for you to do, and you will have approximately two months to do it. Exact deadlines will be circulated later.
Your center will be asked to send us some, or possibly all, of the evidence gathered for our auditing purposes. This request will be made at a later date, so centers must retain all of the evidence they consider, even after they have completed their processing.
Where a center works with us via a Cambridge Associate, including the British Council, the centre itself will be responsible for gathering, processing and retaining the evidence.
We will support you throughout this process, and give you clear guidance about how to work with us, what information to submit, how and when.
We will give more detail on Tuesday 7 April about next steps and how we will use evidence.
Private candidates
We will treat private candidates in the same way as school candidates, in that all the grades we award will be based on evidence. Where a candidate has not been taught at the center handling their entry, centers must carefully investigate what evidence of the candidate’s work can be obtained and authenticated. Evidence from a candidate’s previous school is likely to be
acceptable. Evidence from parents or from the candidates themselves should not be accepted. Evidence from tutors needs to be considered in the individual context. Heads of center will be responsible for vouching for the authenticity of the evidence gathered about every candidate.
Making entries and withdrawals
If it is the right decision for your center, you can withdraw some or all entries from the June 2020 series and then enter these candidates in a later series such as November 2020. Schools can enter candidates for the November exam series from mid-May. We are reviewing if it will be possible to provide some syllabuses in this series which are currently only available in the June series. We will update centers about this before 10 April 2020. If you have withdrawn entries for June 2020 but now wish to re-enter you can do so using Cambridge International Direct up to 17 April 2020, or 10 April for British Council schools. You will not be charged late fees or amendment fees for making these entries. You can only withdraw candidates for a complete syllabus, not for a single component. Entries will not be accepted after 17 April.
Universities
We are in direct contact with universities around the world and they understand our decision not to hold the exams in the June 2020 series. They have informed us that they are committed to being as flexible as they can towards applicants who will not be able to sit their exams due to this crisis. They understand the disruption to teaching and learning experienced by students around the world. The grades and qualifications that Cambridge International awards for this June series will carry the same value as grades and qualifications for any other series. We will be working with universities to explain the methodology we will follow to provide grades, and will give them information about the wide range of evidence we will use to provide fair and reliable results. We are doing everything we can to ensure that universities accept grades in the usual way and that applicants are not disadvantaged by the decision not to hold exams in the June series. We will update schools again on Tuesday 7 April. We wish everyone in the Cambridge International community well at this difficult time.