Have GCSE English pupils been treated fairly?

REALITY at last. Ofqual says January’s GCSE English grades were ‘generous’ rather than this summer’s being too strict. It pointed to ‘two decades of grade inflation’, which is now being brought under control. ‘Generous’ meant that 43 marks in the written section was deemed to merit a C grade whereas 53 were needed in June. Will we eventually see an end to the need for A* grades because A grades are less achievable? Will it mean that a 2:1 degree will be less acceptable? The latest media reports show that a first is now becoming the only degree that counts with employers. Grade inflation has done nothing but delude a generation of students into an inflated sense of their own worth and excessive job expectations. It’s time to get back to the basics. Raising education standards, not lowering the bar, is what we should be aiming for.

ALAN WOODLEY, Woking, Surrey. SOMe headteachers are incensed about the ‘manipulated’ marking of english GCSe exams. My daughter was pleased to get an A grade in her english results — mainly due to an inspiring english teacher, Ms Corinna Swift, at Cheney School in Oxford — but there’s a caveat to this happy tale. My daughter’s coursework was all graded at A* level and the only reason why her final result was an A rather than an A* was that — inexplicably — her poetry exam result was a paltry grade C. even before the furore erupted, my daughter was muttering that ‘something fishy’ was going on. It seems likely that examiners have deliberately marked down the poetry paper cynically to help to fulfil a Government directive that fewer A* grades be awarded this summer as a way to curb grade inflation. We’ve demanded a remark of the poetry paper. I would urge any other parents who also feel suspicious to do the same.