Aggrieved students could make legal claims over predicted grades

SCHOOLS could face legal claims from disgruntled students over their predicted A Level and GCSE grades, lawyers have warned.

Teachers could be hit with a “flurry” of claims from pupils who are unhappy with their marks and believe they have been unfairly discriminated against. In March, the Government announced no exams would take place this summer and all students due to take their GCSES and A Levels would instead receive predicted grades.

Last Friday was the deadline for schools to submit predicted grades to exam boards based on a combination of mock exam results, if they have them, and other “non-exam assessment”. A moderation process will then take place and students will be awarded their final grades in August.

Michael Brotherton, a partner at the law firm Stone King’s education division, said that while exam boards decide the final grade, the “door remains slightly ajar” for pupils who feel they have been wrongly graded and want to take legal action against their school.

“There is potential for some significant push back from pupils and parents once results are published,” he said.

“If pupils are unhappy with their grades and feel it may be as a result of bias or incompetence by their teacher or their school, they will be able to access their personal data results and could use this as the basis for a legal challenge against the school.” He added: “There may be a flurry of parents or pupils initiating a claim against their school with the potential that such claims could be publicly funded.”

The UK’S equality watchdog has previously warned teachers over “unconscious bias” amid fears ethnic minorities and poor children could be given incorrect GCSE or A Level grade predictions.

The Equality Human Rights Commission said relying on teachers’ predictions carries a risk of “unconscious or conscious bias”.

Students are only allowed to appeal this year on technical grounds, and otherwise can take an “appeal exam” in autumn to prove they could do better than their predicted grade. Mr Brotherton

said courts would be unlikely to find in favour of claims from pupils as it would involve “unpicking teachers’ professional judgment, which courts are historically reluctant to do”. ♦more private schools could be forced to close their doors due to a cash shortfall from Covid-19, Christopher King, chief executive of the Independent Association of Prep Schools, has said. The warning came after the Minster School, in York, and Ashdown House, in East Sussex, announced they would soon be closing.

‘There may be a flurry of parents or pupils initiating a claim against their school’