Exam students at schools where teaching has been badly affected by the crumbling concrete crisis should have their GCSE and A-level results uplifted by up to 10 per cent, education experts have said.
Exam boards have refused to make allowances for students at schools affected by reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete (RAAC) who are sitting their GCSEs and A levels this summer, despite them - and their teachers - facing a litany of problems because of the issue.
A study of one of the worst-hit schools by education experts from Durham University, published on Wednesday, concluded: “The government, Ofqual and exam boards need to devise a plan to relieve the anxiety of the students in this school and any others like it, and offer them qualification outcomes equivalent to what would have happened in the absence of the crisis.”
Its authors, professors Stephen Gorard and Nadia Siddiqui from the university’s Evidence Centre for Education, said that the pupils’ exam grades could be fairly increased by up to 10 per cent this summer.
They said: “The Department for Education could perhaps direct that something like this takes place as part of their package of measures to help those few schools faced with the worst of the RAAC crisis.”
RAAC: disruption to learning
St Leonard’s Catholic School in Durham is frequently among the top-performing state schools in the North East at GCSE level, but at the start of the academic year, teaching plans were wrecked after the potentially dangerous RAAC was found in several buildings.
The report found that the school had to shut at very short notice in September and no teaching took place in the first week.
Online lessons started after that, with a slow resumption of face-to-face classes in often cramped conditions, while Year 7 and 8 students were taught off-site at Ushaw College, a former seminary that is a four-mile bus trip away.
The school sports hall has been divided into classrooms but the lack of ceilings makes the acoustics poor, and pupils struggle to hear what teachers are saying.
In English and maths, pupils were taught in classes of 120 and recent internal assessments showed students scored around a grade lower than expected in tests.
In other exam subjects, pupils are said to be weeks behind in the curriculum.
Fears over exam results
A science teacher told the authors: “I cannot do much lab work now.
“Students hate science now as there are no experiments and lab activities for them. This would impact on their academic performance.”
Meanwhile, pupils were aware of the stress teachers were under.
One said: “Teachers are tired and exhausted. It is so difficult to teach in sports halls where teachers have to talk loudly but still we cannot hear them clearly in the back row.”
‘Unfathomable’ not to offer adjustments
Mary Kelly Foy, Labour MP for Durham, was due to meet schools minister Damian Hinds today.
She said: “Pupils have endured 17 weeks of disruption to their education, which has been no fault of their own.
“This clearly affects all students massively, but for those who will sit exams this year, it is completely unfathomable why the government, Ofqual and exam boards are [not] prepared to offer reasonable adjustments that reflect the severe level of disruption they have faced.
“Teachers are burning out; they’re doing everything they can to support their pupils but their energy and motivation is finite and their wellbeing is suffering.”
The DfE has been contacted for comment.
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