‘Take heed of lessons’ from exam turmoil

The Education Select Committee said there was too much controlled assessment work done in classrooms which could be generously marked by schools in the qualification, which had been developed five years earlier.

The report, published today, calls on Ministers and the exams regulator Ofqual to learn lessons from mistakes made during the last government when they reform exams in future.

Last summer’s GCSEs results sparked an unprecedented legal challenge after schools claims thousands of pupils’ English work had been marked unfairly by exam boards shifting the grade boundaries between January and June. This meant the same standard of work could receive different grades depending on when it was marked.

A national alliance of schools, pupils and councils, including 11 from Yorkshire, took legal action against two exam boards – AQA and Edexcel – and Ofqual, calling for a judicial review in order for the grade boundaries to be changed backed to those used in January. They had claimed pupils had been the victims of a “statistical fix” in a bid to stop year-on-year grade inflation.

Ofqual’s chief executive, Glenys Stacey, said last year that she believed teachers had marked controlled assessment work in English “optimistically” earlier in the year leading to the problems later.

A High Court judge ruled that while teenagers were treated unfairly, the exam boards and Ofqual did not act unlawfully, as he dismissed the alliance’s challenge. Lord Justice Alias had said at the time it was the structure of the qualification which had been the source of the unfairness.

Now the Education Select Committee has produced a report which backs this view.

Its chairman, Beverley and Holderness, Conservative MP Graham Stuart, said: “The turmoil surrounding last summer’s GCSE English results highlights the importance of carefully developing new sets of exams.

“A series of avoidable errors were made when the current GCSE English was being designed under the previous government. Failures in the modular approach, and the moderation of internal assessments, led to a highly unsatisfactory level of confusion.

“When pursuing future reforms, it is crucial that Ministers and Ofqual pay careful attention to expert opinion and don’t ignore warning voices. They must understand how much pressure schools and individual teachers are under to deliver results and ensure that the exams children take are robust enough to withstand that pressure.”

When collecting evidence the committee heard that exam board experts raised concerns about the potential problems when the English GCSE exam was being designed, but these were not acted upon by the regulator – which was the then-interim Ofqual.

Mr Stuart added: “We believe the current status of Ofqual, as an independent regulator accountable to Parliament, is the right one. However, the coalition Government is bringing in wholesale changes to GCSEs and A-levels, to a tight timetable and at the same time.

“Ofqual must have systems in place to anticipate problems, and be prepared to step in if it believes it necessary. Public confidence has taken a knock, as a result of GCSE English in 2012.”