‘Free-for-all’ follows the algorithm fiasco as marks soar
Rampant marks inflation condemned by education experts who fear results will be seen as meaningless
‘If you are trying to say that this is the same level of achievement as it was in 2019, it just isn’t true. It’s as simple and blunt as that’
‘There is a challenge here in that the grades this year will mask the significant learning loss suffered by hundreds of thousands of pupils’
IN AUGUST last year, Gavin Williamson was adamant that allowing any degree of examination grade inflation would deliver a double blow to students.
Writing in The Daily Telegraph, he said that not only would it devalue their results but it would also ruin their future job prospects.
However, the Education Secretary seemed equally adamant yesterday that employers can have “real confidence” in this year’s A-level results, which saw the proportion of top marks almost double compared with before the pandemic.
For A-levels taken in the UK this year, 44.8 per cent had top grades, compared with 25.5 per cent in 2019, the last year that students took formal exams.
This year’s results showed an even bigger share of top grades than last year when 38.6 per cent of students were given A or A* after a controversial algorithm designed to standardise grades was axed following a public outcry and teachers’ predictions were used instead.
Last year’s A-level fiasco saw close to 40 per cent of school-leavers marked down by the algorithm which was subsequently abandoned as even Conservative backbenchers claimed Mr Williamson had lost the confidence of teachers and should resign.
Once the algorithm was ditched, there was no going back for Mr Williamson. Having allowed rampant grade inflation to occur in last year’s results, he left himself with no choice but to allow it to flourish for a second year.
This year’s grading system had – at least in theory – numerous checks and balances built in to ensure that teachers did not run amok with their predictions. Schools had to amass evidence, which could take the form of homework, mock exams or class work, which they had to submit to exam boards.
Head teachers were meant to carry out rigorous internal quality assurance processes and they were warned that exam boards would carry out spot checks to ensure their predicted grades were supported by the evidence they supplied. Exam boards were also meant to probe the grades of any schools where their grades appeared to be out of line with previous years’ results.
But despite the record number of top grades that were handed out, it emerged yesterday that less than 1 per cent of grades had been changed by exam boards ahead of results day.
The sheer number of As and A*s that were handed out yesterday has led some to describe the grading system as “coming close to a free for all”.
Neil Sheldon, a former chief examiner, said that if we have learnt nothing else about grading over the past year, it is that teachers’ predictions require some form of standardisation “in order to avoid a descent into meaninglessness through inflation”.
He said: “I would be happy to have a big debate about exams. But whatever method we have, we have to know what we are comparing it to.
“What we have at the moment is something coming close to a free for all.
“It doesn’t make sense to say 45 per cent of students are worth an A or A*.
“If you are trying to say that this is the same level of achievement as it was in 2019, it just isn’t true. It’s as simple and blunt as that.”
Mr Sheldon, who has previously advised the exam regulator Ofqual, added: “We need some method in place to ensure comparability between schools and subjects over time. If we don’t have that comparability in place, I’m afraid it all becomes meaningless.”
This year, 19.1 per cent of students in the UK were awarded an A*, up from 14.3 per cent last year and more than double the 7.8 per cent of 2019. Meanwhile, 25.7 per cent of students were given an A, up from 24.2 per cent last year and 17.7 per cent in 2019.
The rise in top grades was particularly marked in private schools, which saw the largest increase compared with pre-pandemic levels, with 70.1 per cent of all A-levels given an A or A* compared with 44 per cent in 2019.
Meanwhile, 39.3 per cent of A-levels at state comprehensive schools were given A or A*, up from 20 per cent prepandemic. At grammar schools, 56.6 per cent of results were given as top grades, up from 36.1 per cent in 2019.
An analysis of English results by
Ofqual also reveals stark regional differences in the increases in grades this year. Schools in London saw the largest rise in their share of top grades with almost half of all grades in the capital (47.9 per cent) graded A or A* – that is up from 26.9 per cent in 2019 – an increase of 21 percentage points.
In contrast, in the North East 39.2 per cent were given top marks, up from 26.9 per cent in 2019 – an increase of 12.3 percentage points.
Prof Lee Eliot Major, an expert in social mobility, said that these statistics “confirm our worst worries that this year’s results would exacerbate educational inequalities”.
He said: “This suggests the power of sharp-elbowed parents who have been fighting the children’s corner. The pandemic has increased inequalities both inside and outside the school gates and that undoubtedly fuelled some of these dramatic differences.”
A report published last month by the Sutton Trust found that private-school parents are twice as likely to have pressurised teachers over grades.
Almost a quarter (23 per cent) of teachers at fee-paying schools said they have been approached or pressured by students’ families into giving out higher predictions, compared with just 11 per cent of teachers at state schools in deprived areas, according to a survey of more than 3,000 teachers.
Another noteworthy ramification of this year’s grading system was the impact it had on pupils of different genders. This year saw girls achieve a higher proportion of the top grades than boys, with 46.9 per cent of female pupils awarded A or A* compared with 42.1 per cent of their male peers.
The swing of 4.8 per cent in favour of girls is up from 3.3 per cent last year and is the largest it has been since the creation of the A* grade in 2010.
One explanation for this swing in favour of girls is that teachers are more likely to predict higher grades for those who work consistently hard throughout the course rather than boys who “tend to pull it out of the bag when it comes to exams”, according to Jill Duffy, the chief executive of the exam board OCR.
Prof Major said that this year’s grades created a further problem in that they conceal the true damage done to children’s education by prolonged school closures during the pandemic.
“Our research has shown that around half of classroom days were missed over the year of the pandemic,” he said. “We estimate about a third of learning has been lost compared to if the pandemic had not occurred. These are profound learning losses.
“I think there is a real challenge here in that the grades this year will mask the significant learning loss suffered by hundreds of thousands of pupils.”