A-level exams to be delayed next summer
A-LEVELS will be delayed by three weeks, The Daily Telegraph has learnt, after No 10 refused to bow to demands for them to be shelved for another year.
According to Whitehall and education insiders, Gavin Williamson, the Education Secretary, will next week confirm that the exams timetable will be extended to mid-july to help pupils catch up after months of school closures. It comes after university vice-chancellors and Lord Baker, the former education secretary, called for exams to be cancelled as students would be unable to make up for the disruption caused by lockdown. However, insiders claim that David Brown, director of operations at the Department for Education, has made clear in a series of private meetings that ministers are “adamant” that exams must go ahead.
Mr Williamson i s determined to avoid the need for an alternative form of assessment in the wake of the exams fiasco this summer, which saw Ofqual’s algorithm ditched in favour of teacher assessed grades after a national outcry.
Instead, Mr Brown has hinted that a delay of three weeks is being worked on by ministers and the exams regulator.
Dame Glenys Stacey, head of Ofqual, is also understood to have accepted the need for a delay, with the regulator now working on plans to ensure a timely turnaround of results before the university academic year begins.
Nick Gibb, the schools minister, is due to meet sector leaders early next
week before Mr Williamson makes the official announcement. Last night the Education Secretary also placed a legal duty on schools to provide “high-quality and consistent” teaching to students who are forced to self-isolate at home.
It will apply from Oct 22 and continue through the academic year, with legal action available against schools that fail to comply. The DFE is to make 100,000 laptops available to ensure pupils who have to study remotely can do so.
It comes amid concern that some schools failed to provide pupils with adequate resources during lockdown.
A DFE source said things were fast moving and subject to change but a spokesman confirmed Mr Williamson would announce plans this month.
The three-week proposed delay is likely to be resisted by some teacher unions, whose members argue a longer time frame is needed due to the ongoing disruption caused by the pandemic. Robert Halfon, the Tory chairman of the Commons education committee, urged ministers to launch an assessment of how far behind students were before determining the length of delay.
Several unions are demanding a “Plan B” in the event that exams are cancelled due to a resurgence in Covid19, which would involve a more robust system of teacher assessed grades.
Separately, Lord Baker said it would be impossible to have exams next year without placing poorer students at a disadvantage.
He said that while more affluent and privately educated pupils would be able to make up for time lost, students from deprived backgrounds who lacked the equipment to study at home would have “great difficulty catching up”.
A DFE spokesman said: “There are measures proposed by Ofqual, including a possible short delay to the exam timetable. We will continue to work with school and college stakeholders, Ofqual and the exam boards to ensure exams in 2021 are fair.”