School leaders are preparing for a difficult day tomorrow when pupils receive their A-level results following a process where some view grades as having been “determined by a computer model”.

While the grading process has been largely out of students’ hands, some teachers fear the situation could be “incendiary” where borderline pupils have missed out on university places. 

Following the coronavirus cancellation of this year’s exams, teachers spent “weeks and weeks arguing, debating and discussing” what grades students should get. But they later learned their grades would be ignored in many cases, while last night the government said valid mock grades could be used.

Tes spoke to headteachers and senior leaders around the country about preparations for a results day that will be tinged with “difficult emotions” this year, but that is still a “rite of passage”.

‘Teachers really matter on such as difficult day’

“It’s going to be a really difficult day with lots of difficult emotions and this is one of those days where teachers really matter, and the way that we support our students and treat them and help them is going to be really important,” says David Thomas, headteacher of Jane Austen College, a secondary free school in Norwich.

He added: “There is a big difference between getting results that were yours. You know, if they were good or they were bad, you sat that exam paper, you were in the hall and you did it, and if you messed up that’s incredibly frustrating and that’s obviously going to have an emotional reaction - but you did it and there was some agency there.

“I think it’s very different where you are getting results that actually were determined for you by a computer model. There is going to be a very different emotional reaction to that, and if the results that you get are not the results that you wanted, I can see a feeling of frustration and helplessness that is very different to the usual feeling of frustration with yourself that one might have on results day.

“I think so far they [the students] have been really good. They’ve not been catastrophising and imagining there are going to be huge problems when they don’t know if there are yet.”

‘Incendiary stuff out of a very blunt assessment tool’

Tes columnist David James, who is also deputy headteacher of Bryanston, an independent boarding school in Dorset, has warned results day will be “a storm”.

He said: “When you look at the IB result and the results that came out in Scotland, it’s not a great track record so far.”

He added: “I’m more concerned really about those students who we know are on the borderline between certain grades - those students on A*/A and A/B and so on. And this will probably only develop when we really begin to dig down into the data that comes our way this week and the following week where those students have been placed.

“And I think the incendiary stuff that could develop out of this is that those students are clearly disadvantaged by a very blunt assessment tool that has resulted in, sadly, losing out on that university place and that will be a complex process for students and schools.”

‘We’re inviting them in for results day’

Dr James said his school wouldn’t be inviting in pupils for results day, but would be posting results on online and dealing with “delighted and disappointed” pupils alike on Zoom and other social media.

However, Philip Wayne, headteacher of The Royal Grammar School in High Wycombe, said attending results day was “a rite of passage.”

He said: “We always have a leavers’ ball, there is a leavers’ day and a leavers’ concert and sports days, and all those sorts of things that were taken away from them [the pupils] in what was just a really sudden, abrupt, and disappointing ending to a school career.”

He added: “We made a decision that we are having the boys in to collect their results. The boys have lost out on so many of the opportunities to engage with the school over the exam period that we are going to have them in two or three forms at a time.

“We have, of course, got all the social distancing - physical distancing as we call it here - systems in place [such as] hand sanitisers etc, and it will be very carefully managed. We want to see the boys, we want to celebrate with them as best we can and I think they’ll all be here, by and large, because they’ll want to do the same.”

Other heads around the country who Tes spoke to said they would be inviting pupils in, albeit with social distancing in place, while others said, due to Covid-19, the results would be posted online.

Mr Thomas added: “I do think that if it’s possible to come and see your teacher and get your envelope, and you feel safe doing that, and the school is able to let that happen, then I think it’s important that we let that happen.

“And we’re very open to people not wanting to come in. We’re emailing out results where they feel it’s not right for them to come in. We don’t want to pressure them, but for a lot of people that’s how you imagine school ending, so we just want to make it as positive as possible an experience.”

‘How do you rank a dozen top students?’

School leaders have also spoken of the difficulties posed in having to come up with centre-assessed grades and rankings for students.

Dr James said teachers in his school had taken the responsibility “very seriously”.

He said: “It has been a really difficult process for teachers. They have spent weeks and weeks arguing, debating, discussing these centre-assessed grades, and rankings are really difficult.

“You could get a class of 10 or 12 students in some schools, all of whom may have been capable of getting very high grades, so how do you rank them A* down? And if they’d gone into the examinations, those 12 students may all have come out with very high grades, and they may not have - and you could almost reverse the outcomes because they’re examinations and they’re really difficult.”

Mr Wayne said: “I think it will be a shame if it [the grading process] turns out to be a mere statistical exercise, totally ignoring the professional judgements of teachers.

“But I also see the larger picture where the credibility of the process has got to be intact [and] the credibility of the results has got to be intact for these students going forward into their working lives, and into their university lives. So I do see the need for a moderation process, but on balance I fall on the side of teachers’ professional judgement [and I believe it] should be taken into account.”