Absence of A-level and GCSE exam plan is mind-blowing – Yorkshire Post Letters

I FIND the lack of detailed planning for A-level results, and I suspect for GCSE too, positively mind-blowing (Tom Richmond, The Yorkshire Post, August 18).

The organisations concerned have had months to prepare to deal with the results situation arising from the students being unable to sit examinations due to the coronavirus restrictions.

Yet we still have muddle and disarray nearly a week after the A-level results came out. The additional stresses, and the potential damage to life chances, for the young people concerned are huge.

Schools, parents, colleges and universities are each doing all that they can to support, and help, the students to find a way through this wilderness of uncertainty.

If a headteacher planned so poorly for whole school development, or allowed the class teachers to plan schemes of work with no detail, Ofsted would be down on the school like a ton of bricks, and deem it ‘inadequate’.

Aside from the public examination situation is a greater worry. I believe that the confidence of the British people, and consequently their willing compliance with the measures put in place to deal with Covid, is steadily being eroded by this demonstrable evidence of lack of proper planning. The knock-on effects of this are potentially very profound.

On a brighter note, it is heartening to see that Boris Johnson is leading such wholehearted support for the work of the scientists in the development of an effective vaccine.

The fact that the Government has secured options on enough different vaccines to immunise the population five times over is an extremely positive situation. I remain very confident that we are on the threshold of success.

In particular the work of Professor Sarah Gilbert and the team at Oxford University seems to be moving ahead apace.

When we get to the point of being able to roll out a programme of vaccinations, I say to Ministers and others involved with organisation and delivery to the public ‘Please do not let poor planning, and excessive administrative red tape, snatch defeat from the jaws of victory’.

From: S Garbutt, Boroughbridge.

LITTLE wonder Government ministers are reluctant to put themselves forward to be interviewed. I wonder if they know anything about their 
brief.

Schools Minister Nick Gibb on Channel Four News argued it was a suitable appeal option to re-sit A-levels this autumn before the U-turn on exam grades. How was this going to work?

Perhaps his experience of education is limited to the independent sector which interestingly has managed to increase their A grade percentage.

Further, he suggested that universities were happy for students to then enrol in January.

In my experience the autumn semester is the most important semester. It is the first term for study and social interaction with their cohort.

Also, if a university operates two semesters, how are the students expected to be taught the first semester whilst also studying for the second semester?

If a Yorkshire school, rated outstanding at its last Ofsted inspection, can have its grades downgraded, then something is amiss. Where is the evidence of levelling up?

This algorithm encourages more schools in the future not to enter pupils for an exam which they may fail.

Pupils from a disadvantaged background are most affected by this controversial standardisation process while pupils at private schools have benefited the most due to previous pupils’ performance.

Unintended consequences appear to be par for the course with the current Government.

Scare tactics by council

From: William Kennedy, Clifton Common, Brighouse.

I AM really concerned by Calderdale Council’s attitude towards coronavirus. Their approach seems to be to scare people – the council’s big threatening graphics seek to terrify rather than reassure.

If it were justified, it might be understandable, but there just doesn’t seem to be any justification. Cases in some parts of Halifax have been high but in most of Calderdale, there’ve been few, if any cases.

The completely narrow view of public health threatens to cause so much greater harm than Covid ever could. We need businesses to grow, shops to thrive and people to be confident while taking all necessary precautions in this changed world. Not doing so will mean more jobs lost, more struggling families and more deprivation.

We need our schools to reopen to get our children back to learning and get vulnerable young people back in a place of sanctuary, and stop their mental health from suffering any more.

Everything the council is doing seems to me, and all the family, friends and colleagues I’ve spoken with, to be completely out of proportion, and so narrow in focus, that it presents a genuine threat to public health and the future of Calderdale.

Of course, every case of coronavirus is one too many, every death a tragedy, but we’re going to have to live with this virus for some time and we can’t put everything on hold while we do that.

Doing so will destroy lives and it is time for Calderdale Council accept the reality of this, widen its perspective and stop terrifying its residents.

Editor’s note: first and foremost - and rarely have I written down these words with more sincerity - I hope this finds you well.

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James Mitchinson

Editor