Often during online school, I wonder would it have been better if coursework was still implemented? For those of you who don’t know, coursework consists of practical work, which is to be completed during the course, intended to be assessed and contribute to the final grade. Some say this is beneficial as students don’t have to solely rely on one day whereas others dispute that it doesn’t accurately represent a student’s academic ability.
The government and exam boards don’t have a set emergency exam procedure, this is new to everyone. To prevent the rapid spread of the infamous coronavirus, the government has cancelled exams; not postponed. I recall that majority of my peers were appalled whilst others were ecstatic. Most students don’t take their mocks and end of unit assessments sincerely as they deem it unnecessary because it isn’t the real thing. These students would massively underachieve their potential as they have been robbed of the opportunity to redeem themselves. Other students are pleased because they worked hard for their grades all year round and have been revising for many months. Regardless, students would overall perform to the full extent of their potential if they had coursework. Coursework ensures that students, who desire to excel, pull through and work hard throughout the duration of their course. If students still had coursework, then they’d have completed some parts of their assignment building up to the exam. Students would feel less stressed about the current situation as they wouldn’t merely rely on minor tests and teacher judgement. Coursework would’ve given these students a chance to showcase the academic knowledge which they accumulated over the years.
However, coursework isn’t entirely an asset. Coursework would’ve helped those students who work hard but to others it may appear to be a draining lengthy chore. Furthermore, students who’ve previously sat the older GCSEs claim finishing their coursework the night before, this implies that they didn’t think it vital as they would’ve put greater effort by dedicating extra time, to polish their work. Also, for stressed students pulling their hair out over homework may not exactly cope well with coursework. Stressed students may behave irrationally with coursework dates looming over by restarting and over-perfected to the point where the work is overdone. I can guarantee that stressed students like these do exist as I’ve seen many behave like this with their coursework for creative subjects. I have no doubt that they’d behave even worse if they had maths coursework or English coursework. Although, I believe that very few people are this senseless to demolish their own hard work.
Personally, I’d be somewhat content if we had coursework because it would eliminate some of the uncertainty with the current way grades are going. For some subjects, you can reasonably estimate your grade whereas with others you just must wait and see in your results. The current situation is daunting as many feels as though their hard work has gone to waste, and the consolation of - ‘this is necessary for your next academic year”- is insufficient. Maybe if coursework existed, students would feel reassured, but it doesn’t exist in most subjects and you can’t do anything about that. All you can do is complete tasks set by teachers as they will be the ones to establish your grades. You can still make an impact by what you do now if you are determined to make a change.
