England’s exams regulator, Ofqual, is refusing to say whether it will publish data revealing if deprived pupils have been disproportionately impacted by changes made to teacher-assessed A-level and GCSE grades.

Data released by the Scottish Qualifications Authority (SQA) - Ofqual’s counterpart north of the border - sparked Scotland’s grading crisis when it showed that the country’s most deprived pupils were most likely to have their Higher teacher-assessed grades reduced. 

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Based on teacher assessment, the Higher pass rate for the poorest pupils in Scotland would have been 85.1 per cent, but after moderation this was lowered to 69.9 per cent.

Concerns about calculated GCSE and A-level results

That fall of 15.2 percentage points for the most disadvantaged compared with just a 6.9 percentage-point drop for the least disadvantaged. This afternoon the political fallout from that data led Scotland’s education secretary to withdraw all grades that had been downgraded from teacher assessments.

But despite repeated questions, Ofqual has been unclear about whether the equivalent data will be published for England.

When asked by Tes whether it would publish differences between teacher-assessed grades and final outcomes for students, or whether there would be published data on the difference for deprived pupils, the regulator would not give a definite answer.

An Ofqual spokesperson said: “The data we will publish will include a mix of final calculated grades and centre judgements. We’ll share more on results day.”

Geoff Barton, general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, said: “We would urge Ofqual to be completely transparent and provide a full set of statistics on the interplay between centre-assessed grades and final calculated grades, including how the moderation process has affected disadvantaged pupils.

“It is absolutely vital that school and college leaders, parents, students and the wider public have a full understanding of how this system has worked.”

And Dr Mary Bousted, joint general secretary of the NEU teaching union, also urged Ofqual to be more open. 

“I definitely think Ofqual need to be absolutely transparent,” she said. “Everything about the statistical model and particularly about its effects on different groups of pupils, they need to be absolutely transparent about that…they are ducking and diving all over the place.”