The Association of School and College Leaders today warns that
plans for assessing GCSEs and A-levels in the wake of the
coronavirus pandemic must not become exams by another name.
In our proposals to the government
and exams regulator Ofqual, we back the idea of exam boards
providing a range of papers or banks of questions that teachers
can use to assess their students this summer.
However, these should not be treated as ‘mini-exams’, and it
should not be mandatory that schools and colleges have to use
them. Centres should be left with the flexibility to base grades
on their own assessments if this is the best way of ensuring
fairness.
Our proposals are in response to the consultation being run by
the Department for Education and Ofqual following the
government’s decision to scrap public exams this summer because
of the disruption to education caused by the pandemic.
Geoff Barton, General Secretary of the Association of School and
College Leaders, said: “Students have suffered huge disruption
because of coronavirus, and they have been affected to widely
varying extents. That’s why it is vital that the way they are
assessed this summer is as flexible as possible in order to
ensure that they are tested on content they have covered rather
than content they have missed.
“We understand that some people will argue that there should be a
set of mandatory assessments because this will provide greater
consistency. However, there is a danger of replicating the very
problems that drove the decision to scrap exams in the first
place, namely the fact that students who have suffered the most
disruption may find themselves doubly disadvantaged by papers
they cannot answer.
“Many of us have mulled over this dilemma for some time, but the
Prime Minister’s announcement on Wednesday extending the period
of lockdown restrictions, swung the pendulum firmly in favour of
maximising flexibility. We don’t claim the system we are
proposing is perfect, because nothing can be perfect in these
circumstances. But we believe it will provide the fairest way
possible of assessing students this summer.”
Our proposals say:
- Exam boards should provide papers or questions on a wide
range of content, so that schools and colleges can choose those
which focus on content their students have been taught, however
disrupted their learning has been.
- Schools and colleges should be encouraged to ask students to
undertake these papers or questions under reasonably controlled
conditions if possible, to increase their confidence that they
represent a student’s own work. However, they should not be
treated as ‘mini-exams’. There should be no expectation that
students come to these tasks unseen, or that all students sit
them at the same time.
- The use of these papers or questions should be encouraged,
rather than mandated. They will be helpful in determining
submitted grades, and may prove particularly useful in the case
of appeals. However, there may be some circumstances in which the
use of these materials may not be appropriate, such as if some or
all students are not able to return to face-to-face education for
many more weeks.
- Schools and colleges should be given a clear indication of
what other types of work, alongside the exam board-created
materials, they could use as evidence for submitting grades.
- Schools and colleges should draw this evidence together for
each student, and submit grades to the exam boards by mid June.
The boards should quality assure these submitted grades,
satisfying themselves that the centre has followed the agreed
process. This quality assurance process should include comparison
of the submitted grades with the centre’s historical performance
and prior attainment data. If the submitted grades are similar to
the centre’s prior performance and attainment, in the vast
majority of cases the board should agree to award these to
students as they stand.
- If a school or college’s submitted grades are significantly
different from the centre’s previous performance, and the centre
has not already discussed this with the board, the board should
then initiate a discussion about this. The board should ask for
evidence for why the centre believes this year’s cohort is
significantly different. If the board is not happy with this
evidence, it should ask the school or college to adjust the
submitted grades.
- The boards should release the grades to students on the
normal results days, i.e. 12 and 19 August. Any student unhappy
with their grade should be able to appeal to the board, which
will investigate the appeal.
The full ASCL proposal and consultation response on GCSE,
AS and A-level grades can be viewed here
and our response to the consultation on vocational and technical
qualifications is available here.
