Lawyers to launch challenge over GCSE fiasco

The unprecedented action is being brought by an alliance of pupils, schools, councils – including eight from Yorkshire – and professional bodies angry at decisions which meant thousands of teenagers missed out on C grades.

The group want a judicial review into the way the exam boards AQA and EdExcel moved GCSE grade boundaries between January and June.

A spokesman for the alliance said that, following a meeting of legal representatives yesterday, it was decided that a claim for a judicial review will be put forward.

“We have now thoroughly examined the case that we have and we are convinced of the merits of our case, and the expectation that we will have a success to get the outcome we want – which is a re-grade for students,” he said.

The meeting came a week after Ofqual, England’s exams regulator, responded to a pre-action letter sent by the alliance, vowing to “rigorously defend” its decisions over this summer’s GCSEs English results. Education Secretary Michael Gove has ruled out intervening in the matter himself.

Leeds City Council has been at the forefront of the national campaign to get a judicial review. On Tuesday it held a summit for teachers and education leaders to debate the issue. At the event the council’s principal legal officer, Robert Brown, said counsel believed the legal challenge had a “better than 50 per cent” chance of success.

The moving of grade boundaries meant tens of thousands of students received a D in June when the same work would have earned a C had it been marked in January.