I predict an A-level results day fiasco

How is my daughter feeling about her forthcoming A-level results? No, seriously, that’s not a rhetorical question. If you do happen to know, please get in touch because I am so scared of jinxing it, I have taken a vow of silence.

That’s not entirely true. When my extravagantly alternative friend said she was contacting a faith healer to coax her son’s results upwards, I very nearly demanded his phone number.

Instead, I retorted that the results have already been submitted and are in a sealed box or whatever until they are published next Thursday, actually.

“Oh, there’s always a way…” she smiled, knowingly, and my stomach lurched a little more. But is there?

This week saw a backlash in Scotland after a quarter of all predicted Higher grades – 124,000 – were adjusted downwards. Next week, pupils south of the border will receive

A-level results calculated using a statistical model after the coronavirus crisis interrupted the exam season.

Scottish pupils are able to appeal their results, a privilege finally being afforded to English students after the intended ban on challenging grades caused outcry, and the reversal of the policy. Now – but only in “exceptional” cases

– appeals against exam grades can be made.

Leading head teachers are rightly fearful of the incredibly narrow margin for overturning an unjust grade, saying that some of their pupils will be handed a “life sentence” if little leniency is shown towards apparent errors in their A-levels, or in the GCSE results that come out a week later, on

Anticipation: this year’s A-levels will be announced on Thursday

Thursday August 20. With grades partly based on a school’s historic results, a cohort of gifted children will effectively be penalised if they happen to go to poorly performing secondaries.

The exam watchdog Ofqual has warned that a “substantial” number of students will see at least one of their grades changed from the centreassessed grade, or CAG, which is the result their teacher has predicted based on mocks and classwork.

This has led the Association of School and College Leaders to advise that disappointed pupils who fail to get what they need should be told their CAGS, so they can use them to persuade colleges and universities to give them a place.

So essentially our teenagers, already deprived of the chance to sit exams, will then be expected to hustle and beg for the chance to continue their education.

Nobody thought it would be easy. But nobody guessed it would be so egregiously unfair.