‘We’ll get justice for students’ pledge in GCSE row

The executive board member responsible for children’s services, Coun Judith Blake, said the authority would join forces with other councils and schools to get justice for young people who had been “unfairly treated”.

In its initial report into the GCSE row, which a head teachers’ union claims led to more than 60,000 pupils nationally being unfairly given Ds, the exam regulator has offered pupils the chance to do resits in November.

Exam boards moved the grade boundaries during the year meaning the same standard of work could receive different grades depending on whether it was assessed in January or June.

Ofqual admitted the grade boundaries were higher in June than they were in January. However, it said yesterday that January’s GCSE English exams were “graded generously” but the June boundaries were properly set and candidates’ work properly graded.

Its initial report also said it would not be “revisiting” the June grade boundaries because it would “contradict our responsibility to maintain standards over time and make sure results are comparable year-on-year.”

Coun Blake said: “I am outraged that Ofqual have somehow reached the conclusion not to take adequate action to remedy this travesty. There are at least 400 young people in Leeds whose futures have been left hanging in the balance because of the unfair grading by some examination boards.

“The option to offer a re-sit is absolutely unacceptable and totally misses the point. This is not an issue of standards, it’s an issue of fairness in relation to work students have already completed. These are young people who, if their GCSE papers had been submitted just six months earlier with the same mark would have been awarded a ‘C’ grade, but were given a ‘D’ because of changes to the grade boundaries.”

The Association of School and College Leaders (ASCL) dismissed the idea of making students resit examinations. It warned it could still begin a legal challenge against grade boundary changes on the grounds that it had disadvantaged certain groups of students.

As national GCSE results were published last week, angry headteachers claimed exam boards had raised grade boundaries in English amid fears too many children were going to get a C.

Shadow education secretary Stephen Twigg said Ofqual’s report was not good enough, and called on Education Secretary Michael Gove to make a statement to Parliament on Monday about how the Government intends to address the issue.

ASCL general secretary Brian Lightman said: “We are actively considering what legal challenge would be a way of dealing with this.

“It is wholly unacceptable to leave the students and their teachers to pick up the pieces of a problem they did not cause.

“These changes implemented mid-year, without valid and reliable processes, must be reversed and arrangements put in place immediately to ensure that this does not happen again in future examination series.

“It is not acceptable or practicable to make the students resit examinations.

“Many will already have left their schools and decisions about apprenticeships and further courses of study are being made now.”

Ofqual chief regulator Glenys Stacey said: “We have found that examiners acted properly, and set the boundaries using their best professional judgment, taking into account all of the evidence available to them. The issue is not the June but the January boundaries.”

Ms Stacey said most candidates were waiting to take their exam in June and because it was a new English GCSE qualification, examiners could not rely so much on direct comparisons with the past. As a result, grade boundaries were generously set.

Mr Twigg said: “The statement from Ofqual does not address the flaws that led to a situation whereby pupils in the same year, who received the same marks, were awarded different grades. As a result, thousands of pupils have been done a disservice at a time when they are making big decisions about their futures.”