A-level and GCSE results: Pressure mounts on ministers to solve exam crisis

Image copyright Reuters Image caption Students protested against the exam grading system outside the Department for Education this weekend

Pressure is mounting on ministers to let teacher-assessed grades stand in England to avoid a second wave of exams chaos hitting GCSE results this week.

About 40% of A-Level results were downgraded after the exams regulator Ofqual used an algorithm based on schools’ previous results.

It comes as Northern Ireland said it would use teachers’ grades for GCSEs.

The government has so far stood by its system but the appeals process is far from clear.

Head teachers called the A-level results “unfair and unfathomable”, with many gifted pupils losing top university places and pupils in sixth forms and further education colleges particularly badly hit by the algorithm.

Students across the UK were not able to sit exams as normal this year because of the coronavirus pandemic.

Ahead of UK GCSE results day on Thursday, Northern Ireland Education Minister Peter Weir announced the scrapping of algorithm-adjusted results and a move to teacher-assessed grades.

Last week in England, 280,000 A-level results were downgraded from teachers’ assessments, almost 40% of the total.

In Wales, 42% of A-level results predicted by teachers were lowered by the exam watchdog.

It comes after Scotland’s First Minister, Nicola Sturgeon, apologised over downgraded exam results there and agreed to accept assessments by teachers when her nation’s results were published two weeks ago.

The government also faces growing concern from Conservative backbenchers, with at least 17 MPs criticising the system.

The list includes former Tory leader Sir Iain Duncan Smith and Paymaster General Penny Mordaunt who said she would be seeking meetings with the Department for Education on this issue.

Ms Mordaunt said: “This group of young people have lost out so much already, we must ensure that bright, capable students can progress on their next step.”

Wimbledon MP Stephen Hammond said Ofqual’s failure to publish an appeals process for A-levels was a “shambles”, arguing that a delay to GCSE results may be “the best thing to do in the short term”.

Kate Green, Labour’s shadow education secretary, told BBC Breakfast: “We’re now going into week three of this debacle.

“We knew about the problem in Scotland two weeks ago, we know about the problem last week with A-levels.

“Here we are just two or three days away from GCSE results and the government still hasn’t got a grip on the problem.”

Labour has called for teacher-assessed grades to be used for A-levels in England and has said the option should remain open for GCSEs.

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Media captionDemonstrating students said they feel “very let down” and that the grading is unfair

Former Ofsted chief inspector Sir Michael Wilshaw said it was “inevitable” that the government would have to accept the grades estimated by teachers.

“The great danger for Gavin Williamson now is he’s losing the confidence of head teachers around the country,” he said, adding that “he is losing the dressing room”.

The Grammar School Heads Association and the private schools’ body, the Headmasters’ and Headmistresses’ Conference (HMC), also back a switch to teacher-assessed grades, as do the teaching unions and many prominent education academics.

Dr Simon Hyde, HMC’s incoming general secretary, said it was “the only way now to stop this intolerable strain on students and teachers”, despite the “unavoidable” grade inflation.

The Sixth Form Colleges Association said teachers’ predictions should be adopted if the algorithm could not be made fair.

Many students are expected to appeal, although there has been confusion over the appeals process after Ofqual withdrew its guidance for challenging results hours after publishing it on Saturday.

New guidelines are still being drawn up by Ofqual, the Department for Education said on Sunday evening.

Parents will now be wondering why teacher assessed grades are good enough for 16-year-olds in Northern Ireland and Scotland but not in England?

Pressure has piled on the government to find a solution, with both grammar schools and sixth form colleges saying their pupils have lost out, further undermining confidence in this year’s grades in England.

If anyone should have done well based on previous years’ results it’s grammar schools that select on academic ability. Yet they say the A-level results were a “great injustice”.

Grammar schools have a totemic place in the Conservative Party so this will worry many backbenchers.

One of the fundamental roles of an exam regulator such as Ofqual is to maintain confidence in the system.

Yet confidence is in short supply – with Sixth Form Colleges Association analysis showing students getting lower A-level grades than similar 18-year-olds in previous years.

A Department for Education spokesman said hundreds of thousands of students had received a calculated grade to “enable them to progress” and that the department aimed “to build as much fairness into the appeals system as possible”.

Prof Tina Isaacs, who sits on Ofqual’s advisory board, said “the public is losing confidence in the system” and she was “very concerned indeed” that Thursday’s GCSE results would make the situation worse.

Greater Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham said he would be writing to Ofqual to start legal action over the “deeply flawed” allocation of grades, the third legal challenge the exam regulator faces over this year’s A-levels.

On Sunday hundreds of students held protests against grades they believe were unfairly awarded.

Image copyright Reuters Image caption Students warned ‘your algorithm doesn’t know me’ during protests in London

Meanwhile, analysis by the Sixth Form Colleges Association (SFCA) looked at 65,000 exam entries in 41 subjects in its member colleges and found that grades were 20% lower than historic performances for similar students in those colleges.

The SFCA said it had not found a single one where the results were above the three-year average.

Ofqual states that its objective for A-level results this year has been to ensure “national results are broadly similar to previous years”.

The research showed that Ofqual “not only failed to produce broadly similar results, but has in fact produced worse results in every single subject”, the SFCA said.

Dr Mark Fenton, chief executive of the Grammar School Heads Association, said the results had also been unfair to some of its students.

He told the BBC that “a great injustice has been done” with “utterly baffling” results for some students with the “only fair outcome” being to accept grades predicted by teachers.

Three of Oxford University’s colleges – Worcester, Wadham and St Edmund Hall – have confirmed that all places offered to UK students will be secured irrespective of their A-level results.

Ahead of GCSE results due to be released on Thursday, former Conservative Education Secretary Lord Kenneth Baker urged the government to delay the publication of grades until the situation surrounding A-levels had been resolved.

“If you are in a hole, stop digging,” Lord Baker said.

Have your A level results been affected by this year’s grading system?

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