Parents demand changes to exams after lost school time

A-LEVELS and GCSES should be altered to take into account disruption to schooling, parents have said.

The majority of parents (74 per cent) of school-aged children said that exams should be amended to make up for “learning loss” experienced during the pandemic, according to research by the London School of Economics’ Centre for Economic Performance.

Prof Lee Elliot Major, an expert in social mobility at Exeter University and one of the report’s lead authors said: “What is clear is that the policy in England of delaying end-of year exams by three weeks will not be enough to assuage growing concerns among parents, pupils and teachers. There will be uproar if the 2021 cohort of pupils do not receive a similar proportion of top grades awarded to the 2020 cohort.

It came as Ofqual, the exam regulator, suggested students taking exams next year should be compensated for the “baleful impact” of the pandemic on their learning through more generous grade boundaries.

In a letter to the Education Secretary, Dame Glenys Stacey, the acting chief regulator of Ofqual, said the watchdog is looking at steps it can take to make next summer’s exams “less daunting” to pupils amid coronavirus disruption.

One possibility is setting national performance standards more generously than in normal times. “In all years, a student’s prospects and opportunities to learn are, of course, affected by individual circumstances, but in this exceptional period, almost all students have already had less opportunity to learn in the usual ways, because of the pandemic,” Dame Glenys said.

The LSE report found there has been “substantial disruption” to teaching during the pandemic, with just four in 10 pupils receiving full-time schooling during the April school closures, and a quarter receiving no teaching at all.

Even when children returned in September, there has been “unequal learning loss” leading to the belief that they should not be punished for this in their exams, the report said.

Options might include “slimmed down” tests or tests with more optional questions, as well as a “Plan B” to use teacher assessments if exams become unviable, Prof Major said.

Gavin Williamson, the Education Secretary, has insisted that exams in England will go ahead because they are the “fairest way of judging a student’s performance”, but concedes that these will need to be “underpinned by contingency measures”.

Ofqual, has said that contingency plans will be revealed later this month.