It’s a sad truth about human nature that when things go wrong - and humiliatingly wrong - the first thing we look for is someone to take the blame.

And if our chosen scapegoats fail to take that blame and refuse to set off into the wilderness with the burden of all our collective failings, we increase the emotional temperature of public debate to shame them into accepting it.

That’s not to say that those at the top should be immune from taking responsibility for the mistakes they and those working on their behalf have made. But there’s a significant difference between taking responsibility and being saddled with the blame.

We must make sure that the right people take the right share of each. That teaching unions want an “independent” inquiry set up suggests that they have no faith in pre-existing committees or those appointed (or co-opted) or elected to deal with the fallout.

The GCSE and A-level results debacle

Fair-minded people want answers and solutions. That requires a neutral process, with skilled questioners whose objective is the facts. We don’t need a hanging court where the officials are playing to the gallery of public opinion - especially in the post-lockdown, post-A-level climate, where emotions are still inflamed while, in the background, lawyers’ quills are being sharpened. The worst-case scenario is one in which passions, politics and personalities will take over.

Robert Halfon, chair of the Commons Education Select Committee, has been quoted as saying: “The question is whether the relationship between the DfE and Ofqual has become dysfunctional, and whether or not there are fundamental questions about the future role of Ofqual, and whether or not it should be brought back into the department.”

The suggestion is that the fates of those at the top are already sealed, and that the September meeting between Ofqual and the education select committee is likely to be conducted in a scenario strongly reminiscent of a high-profile criminal trial. It’s difficult to believe Robert Halfon when he claims that he is not going to call for resignations: “It’s not my job - it’s not my kind of politics either.” 

By contrast, in this storm of bombastic, largely male voices and blame-shifting, Ofqual chief regulator Sally Collier has quietly made a dignified exit. Ofqual chair Roger Taylor toughed it out and ensured that he wasn’t left holding the bomb, in an unedifying episode in which the education secretary tried to distance himself from the mess.

Unforeseen technical issues

Mark Steed’s defence of Ofqual shows its many necessary functions. Maintaining public confidence in qualifications is at the forefront of Ofqual’s remit. Resisting “grade inflation” was what it was tasked with by the government in those early panicky days of the Covid emergency, when schools had to shut down. 

The snap announcement that teachers would assign grades to their students didn’t go down too well in some quarters. So the job of Ofqual was to give credibility to centre-assessed grades. The obvious method was a statistical fix via an algorithm. The tragedy was that the wrong algorithm was chosen.

But was there ever going to be a right algorithm? And was there any reasonable chance of reliably testing the chosen one before it was applied to this year’s results?

My daily journey from home to school involves a short sea-crossing. Each cross-Solent ferry company has bought new, state-of-the-art craft which have been rigorously tested in laboratory conditions to ensure safety and performance. But once on the open sea, all sorts of unforeseen technical issues can emerge. Passengers expect this to happen.

Testing the 2020 algorithm out on the 2019 results in laboratory conditions was not going to compare like with like. There is a world of difference between known exam results that have been derived from uniform processes and external exam papers, and centres’ assessments of very different pieces of work. There is no element of prediction in exam results - they operate in only one dimension. 

CAGs were about extrapolation from work over two years. The “normal” grade-award mechanism takes the raw exam marks and applies the expertise of senior examiners and exam-board officials who have knowledge and years of experience. 

A scapegoating exercise

Mr Halfon might claim that he had asked constantly for more information. I suspect that Ofqual gave him the same reason as it did the rest of us: namely that giving away the algorithm too soon would result in some centres knowing their candidates’ results before the official release.

The select committee hearing back on 27 May focused narrowly on the important, but not holistic, element of bias in teachers’ judgements. With hindsight, would the committee have asked different and more wide-ranging questions? There is not a single mention of the word “algorithm” in the 38-page transcript of that hearing.

Perhaps the overriding reason I dislike seeing Ofqual on the receiving end of senior ministers’ disapproval is because a scapegoating exercise is undemocratic and demeaning to a fair and free society.

We have to remember that the regulator was acting on the instructions of the Cabinet minister. I don’t think anyone would now say that the algorithm itself was right. And there are many, students in particular, who would say that any use of algorithms is wrong. 

Students are individuals, and in the case of their results deserve to be treated as such. But Ofqual was asked to attempt this impossible task, to fit individual grades into a system when the normal system is defunct: trying to square a circle.

If we allow the scapegoaters to have their way, not only will we lose the opportunity to learn from this year’s debacle, but we will be allowing ourselves to be subject to a process that lacks integrity. We will also lose a semi-independent body set up to challenge ministerial thinking, keep exam boards in check and conduct serious research into the consistency and accuracy of marking.

I don’t want heads to roll. It’s a distraction at best. I want to know how to do things better next time.

Yvonne Williams is head of English and drama in a secondary school in the South of England. She has contributed chapters on workload and wellbeing to Mentoring English Teachers in the Secondary School, edited by Debbie Hickman (Routledge)