Tony Whelpton: Be honest to teenagers who make the grade

It happened yesterday with the publication of the latest GCSE league tables. It happened last year, it happened the year before that, and there is every chance it will happen next year too – even if there's a change of government.

But suppose it does happen next year. Won't that mean that this year's candidates didn't work as hard as their successors? And is there a sell-by date for insults, so that what would have been an insult this year will no longer count as one next year? And what about the children who did the exam in 2002? Presumably, since every year's intake has, according to the Government, worked harder than the previous year's, they couldn't have been trying hard at all.

As for those who did the exam 20 years ago, then they must have been lazy beyond belief. Presumably, they are now old enough not to feel the insult that these annual government statements imply. One would like to think that they – and indeed everyone else – were sufficiently intelligent to see these statements for the nonsense that they are.

But it is not just the Government which is to blame. The phenomenon which lies behind this situation is evident in other areas of life over in which Ministers have no control.

Look at professional football, for example, and you'll see that teams like Huddersfield and Tranmere are in League One. A visiting Martian might be forgiven for thinking that this means they are among the best in the country, but even the most ardent Tranmere supporter knows very well that this is not the case, even though he vows every week on the terraces to "support them evermore", because above League One comes the Championship and the Premiership, which are inhabited by the teams which really are the best (or, at any rate, the best paid).

The fact is that these days, nobody wants to feel that someone else is better than they are themselves. Forty years ago, a grade C at A-level was considered a very good grade; even getting a grade D or a grade E was not to be sneezed at, while grades B and A were awarded only to the genuine high fliers.

Now you find that anyone who only(!) gets a C considers themselves to be a failure. Do all those who gets a grade A think they are high fliers? Perhaps they do, in the way that all who present themselves for an X-Factor audition appear to think they can sing. Ironically, in that context, not only is it made clear to them in no uncertain terms that they can't, but those who watch the programme appear to take great delight in the brutal way in which they are told.

Now I am not advocating an X-Factor approach to GCSE and A-level results; I have too much respect for those who submit themselves to the examination ordeal. Nor do I think it is any longer possible to persuade candidates to change the way they think about grades; for this generation, a grade C would still continue to be regarded as a poor result.

But we do owe it to our youngsters to tell them the truth. They are not stupid enough to think that there are no differences in ability or in achievement.

Just as they can see with their own eyes that some are taller and some shorter, some are faster and some are slower, some can hit a ball and others can't, so they can see that some are better in a particular subject than others.

So what is the answer? Some people advocate simply giving the candidates the raw score, say 68 per cent, 37 per cent, etc., but setting an exam in which 68 per cent means the same every year is virtually impossible.

Others suggest that we give a grade A to the top 10 per cent, B to the next 15 per cent and so on, but this takes us back to the "norm-referencing" which GCSE was intended to escape from. Actually, the answer is staring us in the face.

The initial marking stage of all exams places the candidates in order of merit; the awarding of grades takes place later. So where would be the harm in telling a candidate: "You have achieved a Grade A, and you were ranked 925th out of a total entry for the subject of 12,174"?

Tony Whelpton is a former chief examiner in French at O-Level and GCSE standard.