Until the pandemic, I don’t think I ever quoted Vladimir Lenin. But we are where we are. 

So, at the risk overworking a now-overworked quotation, “There are decades where nothing happens, and there are weeks where decades happen.” For, indeed, this has been one of those weeks that has smacked of decades.

It’s also been a week, I sense, when the national mood has shifted. Many of us may still have misgivings over the prudence of a “big bang” return to school, rather than a more cautious phased approach. 

But that debate is now looking academic, and the focus has shifted to the detailed work going on in schools and colleges to welcome back children and young people. 

And, with that, we face huge logistical challenges around: how to mass test 1,000-plus returning secondary students three times in two weeks; how to deal with those parents insisting that their child won’t take the test; how to respond to those objecting to the wearing of face coverings by secondary students.

And then, in this decade-long week, there’s also the challenge of how students will be assessed this summer following the decision to cancel exams. To me, this looked like a good-news story, even if the Department for Education’s own public-relations wing made it harder to demonstrate it as such. 

GCSEs 2021: The least worst option

The government and Ofqual have given schools and colleges the flexibility to base their assessment of students on a range of evidence, including questions provided by exam boards, but no requirement that they must use these questions. It effectively ditches the idea of mini-exams, which we argued could potentially disadvantage students in exactly the same way as would a normal exam - namely that they could end up being faced with questions on content they had missed.

However, the plan immediately caused concern that it would lead to a rampant increase in grade inflation, putting the government in its customary position of being on the back foot. 

Robert Halfon, chair of the Commons Education Select Committee, who recently referenced “the four horsemen of the education apocalypse” in describing the impact of lockdown, was in colourful mood once again when questioning education secretary Gavin Williamson. Mr Halfon accepted that the assessment plan was the “least worst option”, but expressed concern about “baking a rock cake of grade inflation into the system”, and called on Mr Williamson to confirm how the government will avoid a “Wild West of grading”. 

Mr Williamson gave assurances about internal checks and external checks, but added: “We didn’t feel as if it would be possible to peg to a certain year because, sadly, as a result of doing that it would probably entail the use of some form of algorithm in order to be best able to deliver that.”

This is a perfectly reasonable answer. Unfortunately, it is rather confusing that, in a separate statement to the Commons, Mr Williamson said grade descriptions issued by exam boards would be “broadly pegged to performance standards from previous years”.

Which leaves the question: are grades this year pegged to previous years or not? 

This year’s exams are a one-off

The answer is that there is the subtlest of subtle distinctions between the two statements. In the first, he is addressing the idea of a system-wide mechanism for pegging results to a previous year. This is normally achieved by the use of comparable outcomes. In lieu of exams last year, it was done via the application of an algorithm - which, of course, turned into a shambles.

In the second, he is talking about the use of grade descriptions and other exemplar materials supplied by exam boards to keep grades roughly in line with normal years. In practice, this will be subject to a quality-assurance process that will use the past performance of a centre as a sense check to question any significant swings (up or down). But it is not an exact science.

To translate this into simple terms, the answer is that results will not be pegged to those of previous years, but there is a system to prevent them from being wildly different. 

This is genuinely not intended as an attack on Mr Williamson, but simply to emphasise the need for the government to be really clear.

The important point is that this year is a one-off, designed not only to deal with the impact of the pandemic but also to avoid the disaster of last year’s results. It is a completely different way of assessing students, and it would be pretty astonishing if it produced a set of results that exactly matched those produced by national exams held in previous years.

Because students will be assessed across multiple pieces of evidence, over time, they have more opportunity to demonstrate their performance at higher levels. We should therefore expect more students to perform better than when in exams. This is not grade inflation, nor teachers being overly generous, nor a dumbing-down: it’s just a different system.

The first priority of this system - rightly so - is fairness to a cohort of students who have experienced huge disruption and who will have been affected to varying extents. Trying to tether this system to past results would necessitate adjusting grades to match those achieved by past students taking exams in past years under entirely different circumstances. We saw where that led us last year.

Of course, it is important to guard against rampant grade inflation, because it devalues results. But the approach this year is one of setting tramlines, rather than a mathematical line in the sand. 

This seems to us to be a reasonable compromise. And, most importantly, it is one that is rooted in doing the best for young people who - through no fault of their own - have been very badly affected by the impact of the pandemic.

If this means that there is a little bit of movement in results, then - in this year of decade-long weeks - that is surely a price worth paying.

Geoff Barton is general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders