No one said it would be easy. Even as I write - 24 hours before sixth-form students receive their results - decisions about how A-level and GCSE grades in England are to be awarded are changing. 

From where I’m standing (or rather sitting, hunched over a keyboard, desperately trying to keep up with fast-moving events), these changes have further confused an already convoluted affair.

Let’s face it, the basics of whole-school assessment are complicated. Anyone who’s been in charge of something as seemingly straightforward as exam seating plans - taking into account extra time, access arrangements, anxious students and some twerp who fell off his moped and broke his wrist two days before GCSEs started - will tell you that it’s a blithering nightmare. 

Now we have Covid-19, where anything complicated is magnified by a thousand - make that half a million. 

Coronavirus and A-level results

We had a promising start. In April, Ofqual sent a letter to students, stressing that, above all, its intention was to be fair. Schools, it said, would provide information about the grades they believed the students would attain if exams had gone ahead - based on classwork and homework and performance in internal exams and “general progress” - and schools would rank candidates within each subject. 

We did that. We sat through interminable Teams meetings, calculating to within a hair’s breadth where candidates - wait: who am I kidding? - where the young people we’ve taught four times a week for the past two years should be in relation to each other. We sifted through internal data, looked at books and assessments - if they were available - and discussed the assessments we’d moderated between us. 

However, as results day draws near, reports suggest that schools have overestimated both A-level and GCSE grades. On that basis, Ofqual made a decision to ignore the hard-won information from schools, and apply a statistical model based on the performance of previous year groups. 

But, wait. Wasn’t classwork, homework and “general progress” going to be considered? Reread the guidance: that advice was for schools to make their judgements - nowhere did it say that Ofqual would trouble itself with these trivial details.

I get it. I do. We can’t have reckless grade inflation, and norm-referencing lurks behind every set of exam results ever awarded. But if Ofqual had no intention of listening to what schools had to say, why did it ask us for centre-assessed grades? Believe me, the time poring over spreadsheets to decide whether Caleb was a higher grade 4 than Ciara could have been used much more usefully. 

The fate of the Class of Covid

There’s been a lot of chatter on social media, with infuriating explanations that all this has done is expose the inequalities of the system. And did we honestly believe - poor saps that we are - that it would be done any other way? Well, yes. Yes, I did. Statistical models are all very well, until there’s potential for huge individual injustice: the fate of our Class of Covid sealed by previous years’ performance.

There will an appeals process, although, unlike Scottish students, English and Welsh students won’t be able to appeal on an individual basis.

At 10.30pm on Tuesday, education secretary Gavin Williamson announced that students will be able to choose between their calculated grade and their mock results, providing the mocks were held under exam conditions and could be “validated” by the school. This raises so many issues (jeez, Gav, they’re mocks - the clue is in the name) that it would take another article to examine them. 

A resit in the autumn for those who are still unhappy with their grades remains an option. “Triple locked!” Williamson exulted last night, as though he was flogging a washing powder. How successful resits will be for students after a term and a half out of education can only be imagined. As it is, we’re already struggling with the logistics of keeping students safe for day-to-day teaching. Where are these exams going to take place? In a field?

The value of school data

Meanwhile, I have some questions: if schools’ internal data is so clonkingly unreliable, why is so much of our working life driven by collecting it, reporting it, analysing it?

If certain sub-groups can never catch up, why are so many close-the-gap initiatives rolled out every year? If more than expected progress can’t be made, seriously, why do we bother?

If performance data can be worked out with a postcode and an algorithm, why have we built our reputations on league tables?

And why did we bother with all of the above, when mock grades alone - perhaps the most variable factor of all - could be considered as a suitable measure for final assessment?

What keeps me teaching is hope. Nothing makes it more worthwhile that the forever targeted grade 3 student slogging their guts out and attaining 4s in the real exam. Or the student who’s been hovering around a 7 since the start of Year 10 suddenly hitting their stride after Easter, soaring to grade 9s on every piece of work they hand in. 

Or the memory of the student who wept in my office over mock results that were an anagram of FUDGE (God, I miss lettered grades), and who then rocked up in August to find their final results were an anagram of A*ABBA. We’ve all experienced these minor miracles, however statistically improbable. 

A week of sleepless nights

Results day is always fraught. Kids tremble in the car park, after a week of sleepless nights. They cry with relief or disappointment when they read their results. They bring their nan with them because “she won’t kick-off”. They celebrate all night if the news is good. It’s understandable: a single envelope contains 11 years of education distilled into a list of figures: the currency for their future.

Many of us are facing our students and their families this week and next. It’s bad enough consoling a disappointed student when there is a sense that their own approach to the exam permitted some agency. What will we say to them now? Platitudes about bell curves won’t do.

First, let’s remember this is the strangest of times: that future employers and educators will look at the grades from 2020 with a slightly different focus. If this wasn’t so serious, I’d be tempted to suggest that 2020 GCSE or A-level certificates should be printed on card that’s a bilious shade of green, so there’s no need to explain. 

Secondly, let’s remember that everyone taking an exam this year is in the same boat, and that FE and HE institutions - which rely on numbers for funding - are aware of this. Let’s hope they’ll apply their admissions procedures with flexibility and understanding. 

We can, of course, reassure our students that no matter what their grades are, if they’ve learned their subjects and practised their skills, they’ve benefited from their education in a way that numbers can’t define. It’s a sharp shift in culture, I grant you, but one that’s long overdue.

The next few weeks will demand courage, calm and clear communication. Our Covid Classes - Years 11 and 13 - have missed out on so much this year, so they deserve all the support we can offer. 

Sarah Ledger has been teaching English for 33 years