Cut pupils some slack and scrap exams for year

Why don’t we trust teachers anymore? Or to rephrase, why does the government only seem to trust them when it’s convenient? For example, for the first decade or so of a child’s educational life we don’t question the the ability of humble teachers to coach them through some of the trickiest parts of adolescence.

But after that, and at certain crucial junctures before, they are completely removed from the role of assessing ability. At those points we have things called exams, in various and ever-changing guises. What if the sneaky teachers lie and cheat and play up their pupils’ abilities and give little Katie an A* when quite clearly she is a

D-grade pupil?

Of course, whether exams are the best way of assessing ability, especially of children at an age where the word poo, and sweets that dye your tongue green, are the funniest things on earth, is a debate which will continue for many years. But taking this year in isolation, can’t we just cut the poor kids some slack?

A delay of a few weeks on both the Kent Test,

GCSES and A-levels hardly seems fair for months of missed education.

A friend told me one of his Year 6 pupils had forgotten their 10 times table over lockdown, while a Year 5 could no longer spell ‘with’.

Another head reported children with ‘twitchy thumbs’ due to the amount of gaming that had gone on, while other pupils had become accustomed to a 5am bed time and were falling asleep in class. Clearly all students have been set back significantly, so how can already-stressful exams be justified?

I may have missed a reason blatantly obvious to others but what is the big issue in scrapping exams this year and awarding grades based on such a loopy concept as ability in lessons, assessed by the very people we’re happy to put in charge of the nation’s youngsters the rest of the time?

What if the sneaky teachers lie and cheat and play up their pupils’ abilities and give little Katie an A Star when quite clearly she is a D grade pupil?