Join the Tes panel of experts analysing the main GCSE outcomes for this year. 

We look at the rise in top grades in 2021, contingency plans for 2022 and the widened attainment gap this year, as well as the purpose and nature of assessment at age 16. Joining the debate are:

• Natalie Perera, chief executive of the Education Policy Institute
• Roger Taylor, former chair of Ofqual
• Steve Rollett, deputy chief executive of the Confederation of School Trusts
• Steve Chalke, founder of Oasis Charitable Trust
• James Turner, chief executive of The Sutton Trust
• Danielle Babatunde, teacher of citizenship and sociology and founder of Transcend
• Ros McMullen, experienced headteacher and member of Headteachers’ Roundtable

Don’t overuse the term ‘inflation’

“I’m really concerned about the overuse of the phrase ‘grade inflation’ - I think that’s really demeaning for young people, I think it’s unhelpful and it’s insulting actually for us to be talking about grade inflation at the very moment we’re trying to support young people who’ve lived through these last two years,” says Steve Chalke.

He adds that just as with A levels, he feels the use of teacher assessment and coursework yields a more “holistic” judgement of students’ achievements.

“Tragically, of course, it also shows up the social and economic and digital divide within the country,” he says of the grading outcomes this year.

The impact on equality

Today’s results revealed a widening of the gap between students eligible for free school meals and their peers, as well as a boost for private schools at grades 7/A and above.

James Turner says (from 3.45): “We are seeing those gaps grow, so we’ve seen an increase overall but the gaps have grown, so the gap between free school meal children and others has grown and the gap between the independent sector and the state sector has grown.”

He says this isn’t driven by teacher assessment but by long-standing inequalities exacerbated by the pandemic, such as disadvantaged students’ access to technology and their experiences during lockdown.

Natalie Perera adds (from 6.15): “I don’t think we should be overly distracted by the increases [in grades] that we’re seeing - I think the main focus must be about whether pupils are now able to progress to the destination that they want to go on to and how we support pupils who have suffered learning loss as a result of the pandemic to catch up with their learning.”

She adds that this is an issue not only for schools to consider, but for higher education institutions too. The widened attainment gap today, as well as inequalities based on ethnicity, suggest the need for reform of the system in the future.

What about teacher bias?

Danielle Babatunde says (from 8.18) that she is concerned that there needs to be more research about the ways in which “teacher bias, teacher expectation could have infiltrated, particularly with students from lower socioeconomic backgrounds”.

She adds that teacher assessment was a better alternative to last year, with students given a holistic judgement on their work throughout the course, but that research on attainment gaps still needs much more research.

Steve Rollett agrees that there does need to be further research into this but adds that there are “some promising signs today…Ofqual do say very clearly that they haven’t picked up through their quality-assurance processes any concerns around systemic teacher bias and I think it is important we acknowledge that”.

Ros McMullen says exams don’t “narrow the gap or provide a level playing field - I think it’s schools and everything we do in schools to address disadvantage that has been removed through lockdown”.

She says it’s to be expected that students with access to technology and more support would be able to produce more evidence for their teacher-assessed grades (TAGs) - schools have not been able to level up disadvantaged students over the past year.

The gender gap

From 15.50, Ms McMullen notes that the gender gap suggests that teacher assessment seems to suit girls better.

She adds that the pressure of producing evidence for TAGs has had “a tremendous impact on mental health”.

She says assessment in the round is more robust than exams and that there is no set criteria of standards for exams currently.

But Roger Taylor counters that it is “completely incorrect” (19.23) that Ofqual doesn’t know what it is doing when it sets grading standards, citing the use of the National Reference Test to adjust grades for changes in cohorts’ performance.

“If we see large statistical moves, it’s absolutely sound to say that this is plainly not representing the reality [of achievement],” he says.

Differential learning loss isn’t just a pandemic problem

Mr Taylor adds that the key takeaway from today is what it tells us about attainment gaps: “Just as the public have had a sharp lesson in public health and epidemiology and what viruses are, I think the public has had a wake-up and a realisation about how this system operates and what the impact is of the differences in access to education to people’s life chances.”

He says that the trouble with saying it’s unfair for students with different access to education to sit exams in a pandemic is that it should surely be seen as unfair in normal circumstances, when pupils’ experience of education can be extremely different.

He says there’s no way of fixing this problem through the grading system, but the contextual understanding of what a grade says about a pupil based on their socioeconomic context needs to improve.

“The playing field is far from level…and the pandemic has amplified that,” says Mr Turner. 

Would changing assessment narrow the gap?

Mr Rollett makes the point from 28 minutes that the groups of students who are disadvantaged by exam assessment are similarly disadvantaged by coursework, and that any reviews or reforms of assessment practices need to be evidence based.

Mr Chalke defends coursework in comparison with the “crash or burn or succeed” nature of exams, saying that, rather than putting students under continual pressure throughout the year, coursework allows them to enjoy their learning. 

He adds that in relation to bias, multi-academy trust leaders had complained that because they had standardised evidence across their schools centrally with a “huge amount of internal governance”, it has meant that now they feel they might have achieved slightly suppressed results compared with other schools working on their own.

Inequality within, as well as between, schools

From 37 minutes, Ms Perera says it is important to understand “within individual schools, has there been different treatment of different groups of pupils?”

She says this will help us to understand the question of teacher bias.

She adds that in terms of a new assessment or grading system, we need to think about whether we assess students at the right time - at age 16 - as well as what we are assessing them on and also how they are assessed.

She says the final question on the form of assessment cannot be resolved without considering the other factors at play for students and this certainly can’t be achieved in a “kneejerk” fashion. 

Finally, the panellists are unanimous in their praise for teachers and schools this year and the incredible efforts made to achieve the outcomes released today.