Pupils stranded in exams ‘Wild West’: Dithering, delay... now generation desperation

London headteachers urged ministers to plan for the impact of further lockdowns

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A storm grew today over “Wild West” grading of A-levels and GCSEs as the schools minister admitted that exams may not get back to normal next year or even in 2023.

The admission by Nick Gibb raised fears that a total of four successive years of school leavers may be saddled with certificates deemed unreliable or inflated by employers and universities.

It followed the decision by Education Secretary Gavin Williamson to cancel this summer’s exams and allow schools to assess grades, based on teacher recommendations.

Exam papers will be available for schools that choose to make pupils sit them but these will not be compulsory. Schools have to submit grades to exam boards in 16 weeks’ time.

Asked if traditional exams would be back from next year and what allowances would be given to students whose teaching time was lost, Mr Gibb told the BBC: “It’s an issue we are addressing. We know that the current Year 10s and current Year 12s have also had disruption to their education.”

He said the Government had done its best to enable fair exams and added: “So we are working now on what decisions we will take for 2022 because we know there has been disruption.” The minister also admitted they were also “thinking very carefully about what will happen in 2022 and indeed beyond that”.

He made the comments as London headteachers urged ministers to plan for the impact of further lockdowns and said they must “prepare” rather than “react”.

Robert Halfon, the Tory chair of the cross-party Education select committee, said school-based assessments was probably now “the least-worst option” but he was alarmed that inconsistency would undermine results. “My worry is that there will be a potential Wild West of grading results from school to school, and from pupil to pupil,” he told the Evening Standard. It comes as:

• It emerged that untrained teachers and new graduates will be hired to run summer “catch-up” classes. Mr Gibb told Sky: “There are a whole raft of people who will be able to come in — young graduates, people who are training to be teachers, retired teachers — that is a matter for the school to decide.”

• New twice-weekly Covid tests at home for secondary school pupils will not be mandatory, despite appearing in the road map, it was revealed. Mr Gibb told Times Radio: “It is not mandatory and any child will need the permission of a parent for the test to be administered.”

• Mr Williamson described the past year as the “worst disruption to education since the Second World War”.

• London’s public health chief, Professor Kevin Fenton, urged people to keep sticking to the rules as the latest figures showed the decline of the Covid epidemic in the city was slowing, but 23 boroughs were still seeing confirmed cases going down by at least a quarter in a week.

• More than a million people in Germany are being left at risk of Covid because a “psychological problem” had led to stockpiles of AstraZeneca jabs not being used, said a leading vaccine expert. Professor Thomas Mertens said: “We have about 1.4 million doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine in store and only about 240,000 have been given to the people.”

• The number of face-to-face GP appointments dropped by nearly 40 per cent in January compared with the same month the previous year, new data shows.

Education experts were worried that the late change would punish children who were timing their revision surge in the expectation of exams. Other children could lose out because they missed on online learning by not having a laptop.

Mr Halfon said there should have been a nationwide assessment of every exam-year pupil, to assess how much learning each lost and how much catch-up each needs.

On the risk of grade inflation, he said there was a danger of “a rock cake of grade inflation being baked into the system”. And on the prospects for 2022 and 2023, the MP said: “I hope very much that exams will take place next year, at least in the core subjects of English, maths and sciences.”

Former children’s minister Tim Loughton said children who do not sit exams might “take their foot off the pedal” and fall behind further. He said children deserved “a consistent and transparent standard which is fair to all pupils”, and warned that having “voluntary” exams would make it hard to compare students and schools who do take them with students and schools who don’t.

Belinda Chapple, headteacher of Caterham High School in Ilford, said it was “good” that grades will be based on teacher assessments and the algorithm has been “completely ditched” after the “terrible experience” some schools had last year.

But she raised concerns about grade inflation, adding: “It’s also nearly March now and we are expected to put in results in June.”

Alun Ebenezer, headmaster of Fulham Boys School, said he thought there should be some form of external exam that is verified independently. Also warning of grade inflation, he added: “There has to be some kind of standardisation across the country.”

Announcing his proposals to the Commons today, the Education Secretary said: “Our approach, in the face of the worst disruption to education since the Second World War, has been to protect the progress of pupils and students. Ultimately this summer’s assessments will ensure fair routes to the next stages of education or the start of a career. That is the overall aim.”

Mr Gibb said grades will not have to be submitted until June 18 to give pupils more time to study following the disruption.

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