SUSANNA REID:

My son’s stuck in today’s dire A-level fiasco

This morning, like thousands of other parents, i am gnawing on my nails waiting to discover the outcome of crucial A-level exams that my 18-year-old son didn’t get to sit.

students like my son, who has a place at university which is dependent on getting the right grades, must place his fate in the hands of two groups of people: teachers and a faceless team at Ofqual, the exam regulator. it has come up with a mysterious system to award grades based on the pupil’s ranking in their class, national outcomes and, bizarrely, the school’s previous performance.

Basically, our children have been assessed, ranked and moderated in a way that processes them like graded sausages, rather than individuals.

The worry has only been exacerbated by last minute changes to the plans: on Tuesday, the Government announced a ‘triple lock system’ whereby students could receive the higher result out of their calculated grade, their mock grades, or resit the exams in the autumn.

some families could already be celebrating. For those students who excelled in their mocks, it’s happy days.

But i wonder if ministers understand how mocks work. They don’t conform to the same standards across schools. some are marked harshly to give pupils a jolt and some students don’t take them seriously, preferring to cram at the last minute, what i call the ‘winging it method’ for exam success.

To be fair to pupils, the education secretary also seems to be following this dubious method. Gavin Williamson throwing in the mock result option has only added to the confusion. some pupils hadn’t even taken their mocks before schools shut in March.

When i was in sixth form, i was so terrified of how little revision i had done for mine, that i simply didn’t turn up for most of them.

i also know what it’s like to pull off a triumphant essay, even though i’d felt unprepared at that terrifying moment before turning over the exam paper. That’s how, despite disaster in my mocks, i made the grades to study at Bristol University. it was pure relief when i got my results.

The class of 2020 won’t have that confidence-building experience today. Will they feel like celebrating even if their results are good? it’s the start of a double whammy for me, anyway. Next Thursday this scenario will be repeated for students expecting their GCse results and i am in that boat, too, with my 16-year-old. Thankfully, my son needs to reach a fairly low threshold to stay on at his state school, but i’ve still worked myself up. The final choice in the ‘triple lock’ pick-and-mix system is that disappointed students can resit their exams in October. But let me remind you what most of those students have been doing since the end of March: the sum total of nothing academic in most cases.

MiNe would score highly if tested on knowledge of our local park, shortcuts around south London on a bike and places to swim.

in the past few weeks, i have pored over every story about the grading system and i still feel utterly perplexed. There was the outcry when a quarter of teachers’ mark recommendations for the scottish highers were downgraded, especially when it was revealed to be a postcode lottery, with students in the most deprived areas having marks reduced more than those in affluent neighbourhoods.

Nicola sturgeon has admitted her government failed its students, and in a complete turnaround pupils will now receive the original marks estimated by their teachers.

But Westminster won’t allow the same to happen here, even though it puts english, Welsh and Northern irish children at a disadvantage compared to their scottish peers because they say it will lead to grade inflation from previous years.

Personally, i think a bit of grade inflation is the least we can offer to a cohort of pupils who have been so shortchanged.

it’s a total muddle. i’d give an F to Ofqual for prioritising a standardised system over the hopes and dreams of individual pupils. And an F to Gavin Williamson for neglecting to put proper back-up in place when schools closed.

students will one day study this period in history lessons. And this Government will be judged to have failed the class of 2020.