Weir’s decision to cut exams comes too late in the day, principals insist
SCHOOL principals have said they are “tearing their hair out” over Education Minister Peter Weir’s confirmation that A-level students in Northern Ireland will take fewer exams next summer
hile insisting that exams will not be cancelled, Mr Weir told the Assembly recently that the number of A-level exam papers a pupil will have to take in each subject will be reduced.
The content of many GCSE courses, as well as the number of GCSE exams, has already been curtailed because of the Covid-19 pandemic.
But Graham Gault principal of Maghaberry Primary and president of the local branch of the National Association of Head Teachers, said Mr Weir has left his members with more questions than answers.
He also slammed the minister’s announcement for coming “far too late in the day”.
“The fact that Northern Ireland is the last region in the UK to have announced mitigations, yet first to return to schools in the autumn term, has been of significant detriment to students’ mental health and well being,” said Mr Gault.
“The Minister’s proposals lack contingency-planning measures, should exams be untenable.
“This must be considered seriously — with a predicted rise in the R-number post-christmas, we could be faced with a totally different scenario in January.
“He must plan fo r what should happen if it is simply not possible for exams to proceed.”
He added: “He stated he was confident exams could proceed as we now have a vaccine but the roll-out of this programme won’t happen overnight, and many exams are scheduled for January”.
Mr Gault’s remarks were echoed by Jackie Bartley, Principal of St Genevieve’s High School in Belfast, who raised concerns about the amount of missed teaching time.
“Some of our students in Year 14 have missed 50 plus hours, and our Year 12 students over 45 hours of face-to-face teaching,” Ms Bartley said. “There are other schools who have hardly missed any teaching time at all. Remote learning is not a substitute for face-to-face classroom-based teaching, especially when it comes to our most vulnerable pupils.”
Ms Bartley claimed that the minister “failed to provide any detail about what his ‘Covid premium will consist of ”.
“Adopting the English measures will not reflect the different set of circumstances in Northern I reland,” she said. “For example, our terms dates are different, so English pupils may have more scope for classroom-based learning prior to exams than pupils here.”.
Simon Mowbray, principal of Devenish College in Enniskillen, said his staff have been left frustrated in that they don’t know whether the original weighting of A2 units will change, given that the AS grades from last summer will not count towards the overall grade awarded.
“This is hugely significant, and it is fundamental to any decision making that staff are appraised of this immediately,” he said.
“In addition, in some subjects it would be possible to achieve the 40% threshold by completing coursework only and not sitting the examination component. Is this permitted?
“Again, the advice issued is at best ambiguous when it is read in conjunction with the Minister’s statement to the Assembly that examinations must go ahead.”
Mr Mowbray added that particular consideration must be given to the additional risks to students’ mental health and well-being when so much pressure now rests upon their performance in just one high stakes terminal examination.
“It is important to remember that Year 14 students have not sat any external public examinations since May or June 2019 when they sat their GCSES,” he said.
“Given that they missed out on the opportunity to sit their AS examinations, this puts immense pressure on them to achieve their full potential in May or June.
“Many students feel that it is grossly unfair that their peers were awarded qualifications by Centre Assessed Grades in 2020, having missed three months of learning, yet they have to sit examinations with little consideration that they have lost significantly more learning time.”
The Department for Education were contacted for a response.