Controversy is brewing around the recently released IGCSE and international A-level results, with the outgoing CEO of the Independent Schools Association Neil Roskilly warning that it could lead schools to abandon the qualifications.

Cambridge International, the exam board behind IGCSEs and international A levels, revealed yesterday that nearly half of grades given by teachers were changed in its moderation process, with most lowered as a result.

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Mr Roskilly said in a tweet: “Growing dissatisfaction with IGCSE results, using similar algorithm to general qualifications… Some schools will abandon IGCSEs on back of this.”

He told Tes: “What seems to have happened is schools that don’t have a long history working with [Cambridge] seem to have been particularly punished.”

“A lot of these schools have maybe been doing these qualifications for one or two years. And these results are so out of kilter. Because students might do one or two IGCSEs and the rest might be standard GCSEs, you might end up having students getting lower grades in some subjects.

“Schools won’t allow that, because that’s clearly unfair.”

One school, he said, had “strange anomalies” such as a pupil being downgraded by at least two grades at IGCSE, from predicted 5 to a 3.

He explained: “There seemed to be no reason for that, looking at the school’s historical data. But they haven’t much of a history with [these qualifications], they have only recently taken it up.

“The difficulty that schools face is the appeals process, because you have to get all of the children’s permission to appeal, and you put them in as a group, and of course some of them can go down as well as up. That school is now thinking it can’t really afford the risk of appealing.”

Business kept coming up as an example subject, he said. For example, one school had business IGCSE results that were down by a grade per pupil, while one pupil went down by three grades, and three pupils went down from a C to an E. In the same school computer science saw no change at all.

Roskilly added: “You are getting some pupils getting really strange profiles, with high grades in some subjects and low grades in others, which often makes little sense as pupils get pretty similar results across the board normally.”

Another example where anomalies had occurred was English language, where a school with only two years of results records reported that 83 per cent of its English language marks were “significantly” downgraded, some by two grades, he said.

Mr Roskilly explained: “That’s another example of where the algorithm has been applied but has not been able to take into account the school’s historic data, because there’s little evidence there.”

A spokesperson for Cambridge International said: “This year we had to use a very different system for awarding grades. Our aim throughout has been to make sure students can get on with their education and receive grades trusted by universities and employers globally. Our awarding process combined teacher insights with a rigorous standardisation process.

“Results are mostly higher this year. The proportion of Cambridge IGCSE candidates at UK schools achieving A* to C increased by 1.3 percentage points this year compared to June 2019. Just over half of the grades awarded to students are the same as those predicted by their teachers. Of the rest, most are within one grade of the predicted grade.

“While many students are happy with their grades, we know some are disappointed. Schools can make different sorts of appeals to us, and students can take our exams in October and November, with extra subjects available and alternative arrangements to support schools with distancing and safe reopening.”