Ofqual’s interim chief regulator, Simon Lebus, said today that he hoped quality-assurance checks of GCSE and A-level grades this year would avoid the “febrile” atmosphere of exam results days in 2020, adding that “we are only human”.
Speaking at the Schools and Academies Show, Mr Lebus said he was aware of teachers’ concerns over the “administrative burden” of grading and appeal arrangements, adding that he was “very conscious of the amount of work we are asking teachers to do at a time when you are already under considerable pressure”.
Mr Lebus said that he was “also acutely aware that robust quality-assurance processes are central to reassuring students and parents that results are fair”.
“This, I hope, will allow us to avoid a recurrence of the febrile atmosphere experienced last summer. News headlines such as ‘The story of the big U-turn of the summer’, ‘Exam grades in chaos’, ‘Teachers in despair’, ‘Students’ fury as grades marked down’ and ‘Cruel A-level inequality exposed’ made for difficult reading and adversely affected the morale of everybody involved in awarding qualifications.
“We are, after all, only human,” he added.
WATCH: Ian Bauckham calls for teachers to ‘grade dispassionately’ this year
GCSEs and A levels 2021: We want to restore public confidence, says Ofqual
Mr Lebus added: “That being said, I recognise the headlines are never going to be glowing about a process that in many ways is simply the best we can do under the circumstances. But that’s not what is important. What is important is being able to restore public confidence in the grades that our young people receive.”
Mr Lebus was also asked about what grading standards would be applied when full exams were reintroduced, and whether it would be impossible to apply standards from 2019.
Analysis by Tes reporter Catherine Lough
Simon Lebus’ words to teachers this morning sounded something like a plea - that, despite the unquestionable difficulties of this summer’s grading processes, they must avoid letting their emotions or sympathies with individual students hold sway.
It’s a consistent message from Ofqual, with the regulator’s chair Ian Bauckham striking a similar note yesterday when he told an audience at the Confederation of School Trusts conference they must aim to grade “dispassionately”.
And, indeed, it makes sense - if we are to avoid rampant grade inflation, or students progressing on to courses that are unsuitable for them, teachers do need to be as objective as possible in their judgements this year.
But it also reveals how anxieties about this year’s grading processes are being passed on to teachers by Ofqual and the exam boards. The quality assurance process will ensure that schools that submit very high grades compared to their historical performance will be checked out, but if grades do end up being higher across the board than in 2020, will teachers be blamed for allowing their “sympathies” to run away with them?
And there are also lots of questions that remain unanswered about what happens in 2022, both in terms of whether exams will go ahead, and what grading standard will be reintroduced. “Full-fat” exams may be off the cards.
Exam boards and Ofqual appear to be adopting a “wait and see” approach for 2022, at least until the 2021 results are in, but teachers may feel they need more certainty to help them plan as opposed to warnings to “do the right thing”.
“It’s going to be difficult to talk about that with much confidence until we see what happens this year, for starters. But clearly there is a disjunct or a discontinuity between 2019 and 2020 and there will be a disjunct or discontinuity with 2021,” he said.
“Next year’s going to be peculiar because A-level candidates, in particular, will never have sat public exams previously, so this is definitely something that’s going to need quite a lot of thought, I think: how that process of returning back to normality is managed, not merely in terms of what exams look like next year but what the grading looks like.”
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