Exam regulator Ofqual is to consider setting up a helpline for parents to help them understand the appeals process over this year’s teacher-predicated GCSE and A-level grades.
The question of a helpline was raised at today’s Commons Education Select Committee (held online) in which chair Robert Halfon MP raised concerns that “well-heeled families” would be better prepared to appeal against grades by lobbying their MP or hiring a lawyer, while disadvantaged pupils “would not be able to navigate the [appeals] system”.
Ofqual chief regulator Sally Collier, pictured, told the meeting: “Supporting those students to know the routes open to them to appeal is clearly the responsibility of Ofqual”.
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Mr Halfon said: “I do worry that this is a system for the professional classes and not for people from disadvantaged backgrounds and I’d be interested to see the stats as to how many people from disadvantaged backgrounds know how to do the appeal.”
Committee member Ian Mearns MP said: “We need some clarity as to how this [appeals] system will work so that every parent will know.
“If they want to access a complaint or review procedure, do they go to the teacher, the subject lead, the senior management team, the deputy head or the head? Or do they go the chair of governors or the local authority or the multi-academy trust or the diocese or bishop?”
Mr Halfon asked Ms Collier: “Would Ofqual consider setting up a helpline so that any parent could ring, freephone, to ask what the procedure is for appealing against grades that they think are unfair?”
Ms Collier added: “We’re very happy to take that away and look at that. We want to do everything we can to support all students to access the system.”
She said each exam board had its own process for taking an appeal and that “as we speak” the new appeals process was being designed but that exam boards, where possible, would try to make it “consistent”.
