Teachers to grade students after A-level and GCSEs exams cancelled

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PA
Ewan Somerville3 April 2020

Teachers will be tasked with calculating their students’ A-level and GCSE grades this summer.

Pupils will be ranked in league tables based on their prior attainment after school exams were cancelled and schools shut due to the coronavirus crisis.

But if they contest their teachers’ prediction, they will be allowed to sit exams in the autumn and use the highest grade as final, Ofqual said.

The exams watchdog urged schools to make a “fair and objective” judgement of the grade students would have achieved, using resources such as mock exam results, homework, coursework and “general progress during your course”.

Teachers will be asked to rank students by grade
PA

Teachers have also been asked to submit their marks no later than May 29 and rank students within predicted grade boundaries, which will be used to moderate schools nationwide.

If schools inflate too many grades, those towards the lower end of these bands risk having their mark lowered.

They are not allowed to tell students their results until results days, which will stay on their usual August dates or be earlier.

In a letter to pupils and families Sally Collier, the head of Ofqual, advised them not to ask teachers for their grade.

“I understand how unsettling the past weeks have been for you, since the announcement that exams have been cancelled this summer, and that you are urgently waiting for news,” she wrote. “I wanted to let you know what we are doing to provide you with grades.

“Our overriding aim in this is to be fair to students this summer and to make sure you are not disadvantaged in your progress to sixth form, college, university, apprenticeships, training or work because of these unprecedented conditions.”

The Education Secretary said grades will be just as valid this year
AFP via Getty Images

Geoff Barton, the general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, said he supports the measures. “We must all recognise this is a system forged in extremis,” he added.

England's Education Secretary, Gavin Williamson, said cancelling exams had been a "necessary step to help fight the spread of coronavirus".

He said the announcement from Ofqual would provide "assurance to students, parents and schools that grades awarded this summer will accurately reflect students' abilities and will be as valid this year as any other".

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