This year’s GCSE grades are set to finally arrive, after turmoil over whether the final results would be in on time this week.
After Ofqual performed a dramatic U-turn on Monday, announcing that centre-assessed grades would be awarded to A level and GCSE candidates after all, exam boards were under pressure to deliver a new set of results on time.
But many will be wondering how exactly we got here.
Watch my explanation below of the series of U-turns and eleventh-hour decisions that have led to today’s outcomes.
Pupils will now receive their final GCSE results tomorrow. We can expect there will be grade inflation of 9 per cent on the previous year, as Ofqual had calculated this would be the case if teacher-assessed grades were used.
But, given some of the issues over A level results, GCSE students will probably breathe a sigh of relief that their grades will largely be down to their teachers and not Ofqual’s algorithm.
One issue that remains unclear is how this will affect equality, and whether particular groups of students could be disadvantaged.
Groups such as the race equality think tank the Runnymede Trust had already raised this prior to schools submitting their teacher-assessed grades. If teacher-assessed grades are used, it does mean these concerns about bias against particular groups of students could still be an issue.
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