Don’t keep students in the dark about next year’s exams
Students, teachers and parents deserve clarity now about how next year’s exams will take place, says the Welsh Conservatives’Conservatives Shadow Minister for Education Laura Anne Jones
LATE-NIGHT revision sessions. Flash cards and post-it notes as far as the eye can see. Highlighters of every colour imaginable. I can remember prepping for my exams like it was yesterday.
And although it was stressful at times, I wouldn’t change a thing because I know that I came out of that exam hall equipped with a range of new skills, which set me up for the next stage of my life.
I walked away, having spent weeks gearing up for my exams, with a lot more patience, better time-keeping skills, more discipline and leadership.
Exams also help students – including myself all those years ago – become more independent, they develop your thinking, motivate you to give it your all, boosts your confidence and leaves you with a sense of achievement.
However, hundreds of thousands of students in all four corners of Wales, and across the rest of the UK, missed out on the opportunity to take exams over the last two years because of the pandemic.
Given the amount of disruption students and teachers have had to endure switching from classrooms to online learning, it was only right that we took a different approach.
On the other side of Offa’s Dyke, the UK Government’s newly appointed education minister Nadhim Zahawi has announced that youngsters in England will be heading back into exam halls next summer.
He has been in the job for a matter of weeks following the Prime Minister’s cabinet reshuffle and has already set out his ambitions, so what is the Welsh education minister’s excuse?
Now the attention is turning to the rest of the UK nations. What will students in Wales be doing when GCSE and A-Levels come around again in less than 12 months’ time?
Well, your guess is as good as mine as all we’ve had from the Labour’s education minister Jeremy Miles is radio silence.
In the summer of 2020, no exams took place and instead students received a calculated grade generated from an algorithm, but a U-turn quickly followed and students were awarded the grade that their school or colleges submitted.
And then this year we saw a system put in place which saw grades awarded based on classroom assessments carried out under teacher supervision.
But now restrictions are easing, and as we learn to live with the virus, now is the time for exams to return as I, and the Welsh Conservatives, believe they are still the fairest form of assessment.
It is understood that the intention is for exams to return, but back in August the education minister admitted “the means of assessment may be different next year.”
Students, parents and teachers need to know as soon as possible what is going to be expected of them next summer.
The Welsh Conservatives had called on Mr Miles to outline his plans for GCSE and A-Levels before schools returned last month to give learners and teachers plenty of time to plan ahead, but our calls clearly fell on deaf ears.
Our Conservative colleagues in Westminster have, I think, taken a sensible approach to bringing exams back by still recognising the major impact the pandemic has had on our young people.
Some changes have been made to ensure fairness for students such as providing a range of topics in some GCSE exams like history and English literature and giving learners advance information on the focus of exams so they can concentrate revision on specific topics.
The UK Government believes these changes take into account the disruption caused to students, while also balancing the need to return to exams, and I have to agree with them especially as exams are still the fairest form of assessment.
Maybe it is time for Labour ministers in Cardiff Bay to look at what they are doing at the other end of the M4 and adopt a similar approach.
It is high time that Mr Miles goes before the Senedd and outlines the Labour-led Welsh Government’s plans for next year.
Teachers, students and parents up and down Wales deserve to know. And they deserve to know now.