'No algorithms whatsoever' will be used in exam grades this year, Education Secretary pledges

Speaking from Downing Street tonight, Mr Williamson said the Government was “putting trust in teachers” after the Prime Minister said children catching up after being out of school for so long was “the biggest challenge our country faces”.

Mr Williamson said he was unable to reveal more before addressing MPs tomorrow, but he told a press briefing: “As I said many times before, we are putting trust in teachers.

“That’s where the trust is going – there is going to be no algorithms whatsoever but there will be a very clear and robust appeals mechanism."

Last year an algorithm which took predicted grades but then adjusted them based on other pupils’ attainment and the school’s previous performance came under fire for unfairly penalising children in disadvantaged areas.

After an uproar, the Government decided to allow pupils to be awarded their teacher-predicted grades.

The Prime Minister Boris Johnson earlier accepted the Government will “have to do more” to help children in England catch up from coronavirus disruption.

After coming under fire from shadow schools minister Wes Streeting over the funding made available, Mr Johnson told the Commons: “The catch-up funds now amount to £2bn.

“Yes, we will have to do more because this is the biggest challenge our country faces and we will get it done.

“We will be able to do it as we’ve been running a strong economy and we had the resources to do it because we hadn’t followed the bankrupt policies of himself and the party opposite.”

The Government has already announced a £720m education support package for England including summer schools, tutoring, and early-years development.

But northern education and business leaders said measures to close the attainment gap do not go far enough

In North Yorkshire Chris Kirkham-Knowles, headteacher for Newby and Scalby Primary School in Scarborough, said: “The amounts of money concerned appear large when taken as a whole but, when shared amongst all schools in the country, will provide very little tangible support.

“It is vital that further, additional money is targeted towards areas of greatest need to supplement this welcome allocation.”

While Rotherham-born former Education Secretary Justine Greening, told The Yorkshire Post: “It’s important that ministers set out a wider, comprehensive, sustained plan with the resourcing alongside it to not only recover lost ground but then close gaps altogether.”

As a result of the pandemic, children across the UK are likely to lose at least half a year of normal, in person schooling, while facing almost a year of disruption, when they will return to the classroom on 8 March.

Mr Kirkham-Knowles said: “Summer schools and other initiatives have great headline appeal but all the evidence shows that highly effective teaching is key to moving learning forward. Any additional burdens on teachers' ability to focus on their core purpose could have a detrimental impact on pupils' future outcomes. If they are to get the very best possible education, pupils need healthy and energetic, rather than tired and drained, teachers working with them.”

While Paul McIntosh, the acting headteacher of King James’s School, a secondary school in Knaresborough, which caters for 1,500 students, and 100 staff , said: “The whole concept of ‘catch-up’ is one we have to watch really carefully."

Mr McIntosh, who stepped into the acting head role at the beginning of October last year,added: “We have to be aware that our students need calmness and kindness first, without us causing more anxiety through telling them they have missed so much and need to catch up.”

Mr Williamson said tonight that every change made to the schools system needed to be focused on “driving change” in children’s outcomes.

He said: “Every intervention, every change that we make to our schooling system has got to be focused on one thing, and that’s driving change and improvement in terms of the outcomes that children are going to have.”

He said one of the areas is “driving up” the quality of teaching, while another is ensuring interventions are targeted at the children who need them.

And he pledged to do “everything we can” to ensure the life chances of children in education during the pandemic are not set back.

“As someone who has two daughters at school, I’m absolutely certain that we are going to do everything we can do for all of our children,” he told the Downing Street briefing.

“To make sure that they’re not set back by this pandemic, that their life chances are in any way not stinted.

“We’re going to do everything we can do to make sure that they can reach their absolute potential.”