Only top people need top marks in A-levels
All through childhood, you’re told to work hard to get good exam results because that’s how you become successful and wealthy. For example, Jacob Rees-Mogg worked so hard at geography, he became the son of Baron Rees-Mogg and got a well-paid job wearing a monocle in stately homes.
This year’s students couldn’t sit the exams so the grades were predicted by their teachers.
But thousands of those results have been revised in a way that benefits students from wealthier backgrounds, while pupils from normal schools had their marks lowered.
Thank goodness for that. At last rich private students are given a chance in life.
Already, as many as one-third of the last three Prime Ministers didn’t go to Eton. Imagine what this must do to the self-esteem of these neglected souls.
The head of almost every institution, from the BBC to the Army, is almost always from a privileged background, and that’s how we have to keep it.
Because if the head of the Army was working class he might arrive in Iraq and start selling knocked-off ipads instead of establishing a buffer zone.
So to make sure the right people stay in charge, the Government has devised a clever system for working out grades. It’s complicated, but I think I can explain how it works.
If a child from a working class background has done well, the examiners say: “That can’t be right, she’s from Rotherham. We’d better change it to a D.”
Then they would say: “On the other hand, Bartholomew from Huntingdon answered that the King of England during the Second World War was Dumbledore. That’s close enough so we’ll give him an A* because his father owns the coast of Cornwall.”
In any case, the Government has already tried to help out kids from poorer backgrounds by trying to deny them dinners in the summer.
This would have left them more time to study as they wouldn’t have had to waste time eating.
Whereas children from wealthier backgrounds had private tutors and daily lessons on Zoom throughout the lockdown.
This means they’ve been taught the answers, so it’s unfair to expect them to remember them as well.
In fact private school kids should be given an A without even attending the exam, to make up for having to spend pend so much of their time e on activities such as inheriting, heriting, which leaves them m with little time for studies.
Or the exam board should change ange the sort of questions that hat pupils are asked.
Maths should start with: “During a morning’s g’s hunt, 35 grouse are shot across 13 acres of your uncle’s ncle’s estate. How w large a tip should d you give the servant?”
And the he history exam am c ould be: “Which regiment in the Crimean War of 1853 to 1856 856 was led by your ur greatgreat- great- at- great grandfather?” r?”
Because e social mobility is s slightly worse than n it was in
1950 and that hat needs to change. It t should be slightly worse orse than it was in 1350. 0.
So it’s encouraging the Government ernment is doing it all it can to make this happen.