The government is being urged to prioritise symptomatic exam students for Covid tests to minimise “ongoing disruption” to their learning.
The suggestion is part of a series of proposals put forward by the Association of School and College Leaders, the NAHT school leaders’ union, the NASUWT teachers’ union, the NEU teaching union and the National Governance Association.
The organisations have also said that next year’s exam results should ideally be “pegged to a point” between grades achieved in 2019 and 2020, to “retain a degree of comparability”.
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In a document submitted to schools minister Nick Gibb and Department for Education officials ahead of a meeting today, and to exam regulator Ofqual, the organisations wrote: “We hope that the current problems with the test and trace system will be rapidly resolved.
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“In the meantime, we would urge the government to prioritise students due to sit exams imminently - ie, those in Years 11 and 13 - for testing, along with education staff.
“This would not entirely solve the problem, as it wouldn’t help Year 11 and 13 students who are having to self-isolate as a result of other members of their household displaying Covid symptoms or testing positive, but it would be a step in the right direction.”
The organisations made the following recommendations to government and Ofqual, which they said should be actioned “as a matter of urgency”:
- Commission an independent review of what happened with exam grading in 2020, in order to learn from this when planning what to do in 2021 (while not allowing this to delay time-critical decision-making).
- Prioritise symptomatic students in key exam years for Covid tests to reduce ongoing disruption to exam classes’ learning.
- Publish contingency plans as soon as possible to outline how students who are unable to sit exams in the summer, or whose education has been very significantly disrupted, will nevertheless receive robust, reliable grades. This could include formal staged assessment arrangements and a robust fallback centre-assessment process.
- Review the assessment of all general qualifications to allow for greater optionality in most subjects, and consider changes to the design of assessments to ensure any issues with this are addressed.
- If the above actions are taken, retain comparable outcomes in 2021, with results ideally pegged to a point between the grades achieved by students in 2019 and 2020.
