Commenting on A Level, Applied General and other Level 3
qualification results, Dr Mary Bousted, Joint General
Secretary of the National Education Union, said:
“The Union congratulates all students receiving their A-Level,
Applied General and other Level 3 qualification results today.
They have kept going through the pandemic and through years of
austerity. Their determination and resilience, alongside the
efforts of educators, parents and carers who support them,
deserve great credit.
‘Exam results should not be taken as a valid measure of school
quality. It would be wrong to compare results at a national level
with those of previous years. It would also be wrong to use them
to compare individual schools and colleges. Different methods of
assessment have been used, different levels of pandemic
disruption have been experienced and Ofqual has implemented
different approaches to grading from one year to the next.
‘The efforts of parents, students and teachers are not matched by
the quality of the exam system. The decision to return abruptly
to pre-pandemic grading risks damaging the future of students
from disadvantaged backgrounds, whose lives and learning have
already been hit hard by the pandemic.
‘The exam system itself is badly in need of reform. The ways in
which students and their schools and colleges are judged does not
do them justice. Just as is the case with blunt, one-word Ofsted
judgments, one figure calculated from the results of exams cannot
alone demonstrate everything about the education on offer at a
school or college. Relying on end-of-course exams does not allow
students to demonstrate all they are capable of.
‘As the Independent Assessment Commission has argued, the demand
for change is growing. There is a wide consensus that a
curriculum and assessment review in England working towards a
broader, fairer, more reliable and more inclusive assessment
system is urgently required”.
