Thankfully, results week was a relatively relaxed affair this year, with media, commentators and educationalists all accepting that given the circumstances, it was as good as it could have been. There was criticism, for sure, but muted and more considered than last year when the frenzy of crisis led to too many discussions and reporting lacking in proper understanding. Perhaps the overwhelming emotion was that of relief, because another disaster like last year would have undermined the last vestiges of confidence in our education system for a long time.

To be better than last year is a low bar, so it’s important to reflect on what we have learned from both years as we look forward. Five observations stand out for me.

Observation one is that students were proud of their achievements and felt that they had worked hard to deserve the grades they were given because they had undertaken assessments. They had been tested and believed that they had earned their grades, and that is as it should be. It was inevitable and widely predicted that grades would be higher than in 2019 simply because end-point, high-stakes exams are always going to have a lower grade profile than multiple assessments taken over weeks where a teacher can use judgement to give an overall grade. An important rebuff to those loosely talking about grade inflation without thinking it all through.

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Background: We must remember this year - even if we’d rather forget

Observation two is that students were quick to praise the college and school staff for the support, care and encouragement they had given. They recognised just how hard staff worked to keep teaching, to adapt to new ways, to move online and to keep an eye out for students’ mental wellbeing. Everyone involved in education should be proud of that. The government really should recognise it and reward it.

Thirdly, it is clear that students simply want to look forward and are eager to get on with the next stages of their lives. That’s always the case, but after so much disruption from lockdowns that desire to move on feels much more important this year. The jury is out on how easy it will be for them to do that, given the uncertainties about Covid, the economy, the labour market and lockdowns. We should all hope that they can move on and start to forget the Covid disruptions as well as make up for them.

Fourthly, this year’s results, like last year, exposed the enormous educational inequalities in our country. That was no surprise to most of us, but sadly it seemed to be to many in the mainstream media. That those inequalities increased this year and last shows how much more support is needed to turn things around. We all need to press the government to both have a strategy and win more funds in the spending review if we want the inequalities to reduce. Education recovery needs much more long-term investment and thought than is currently in place, and even that will need to be part of a longer-term plan for overcoming those entrenched inequalities.

Fifthly, there are also some important observations on assessment. Despite ministers saying time and again that “exams are the fairest form of assessment” (with no apparent evidence to support it), a more even-handed reading would suggest that a mixture of assessments, including exams, with strong quality assurance is probably the fairest. A mixture reduces the consequences of something going wrong on the exam day itself, allowing students to show their abilities, knowledge and skills over a series of assessments. It would not reduce rigour or consistency if done properly and it would be the best contingency plan for any year where exams cannot happen. The consistency this year and last year of AGQ and VTQ results shows that very clearly. It would be nice for once if the good practice in VTQs was examined and learned from in GQs.

Five observations and lots of learning to be had. And there is one final observation. In recent months, the Department for Education has worked more closely with associations like mine and with staff unions than I have seen before. That close working has allowed difficult discussions to be had confidentially, diverse views shared and agreements made about the best ways forward. That has all worked in a highly charged and stressful environment, so I’m hopeful that the same collaborative approach can be used to learn lessons from the pandemic in order to co-design education recovery, assessments and approaches to inequalities. It’s good to have hope.

David Hughes is chief executive of the Association of Colleges