The founder of a major multi-academy trust has said GCSE and A-level exams should be ditched this year because the pandemic means there is no “level playing field” for students.

Speaking on BBC Radio 4‘s Today programme, Steve Chalke, the founder of Oasis Community Learning, said: “I think that we should scrap them - it’s the only wise thing to do.

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“I think to go ahead is too big a risk, too big a gamble playing with young people’s lives.

“And the reason for that is that we have already had months and months of disruption, and the prime minister told us just last night there’s more to come; it’s not going to be rosy.”

GCSEs 2021: ‘There’s not a level playing field’

The Rev Chalke said 30 of the trust’s 52 academies had been impacted by sending year groups or bubbles home, affecting about 3,000 children in total.

“So it’s been impossible to provide for them all that continuity of education, it’s been disturbed. And that means there’s not a level playing field,” he said.

He said pupils being sent home “exposes the gap between the privileged, who have got space, peace, internet access, digital equipment and support” and their less advantaged peers.

Asked if that meant getting rid of all exams, he said: “I think that’s what we’ve come to.

“Because we cannot control the virus, we do not know what’s ahead of in these months, we can’t guarantee continuity of educational access for every young person, so you can’t have a level playing field. It will further disadvantage the disadvantaged.”

The Rev Chalke added that union proposals of having exams in some circumstances would still be unable to guarantee “equality and fairness”.

“In different parts of the country in different schools, different kids have had a different amount of time away,” he said.

The Rev Chalke said teacher assessment, using externally moderated coursework, would be a better way of assessing students this year. He added that this would solve any issues regarding teachers assessing pupils overly generously, as all schools would know they were using teacher assessment in advance.

“Every child needs to know where they are and every teacher needs to know what they’re preparing for - this morning we’ve already limped through over a month and there are only two terms to go before all this happens, and many kids are out of school this morning,” he added.

His was speaking as survey findings suggested that parents favoured teacher assessment over exams for GCSEs and A levels next year.

Yesterday, Scotland cancelled the 2021 National 5 exams, with teachers’ judgement being relied on to award grades.