Schools’ centre-assessed grades should have been the only grades awarded for GCSEs this year - regardless of whether a student’s moderated grade was higher, say headteachers.
Following a dramatic change of heart on Monday, exam regulator Ofqual said students would receive centre-assessed grades (CAGs) rather than its moderated grades - but not if the moderated grade was higher.
And with schools reporting today that some students were receiving “bizarre” boosts to GCSE grades through moderation, headteachers said the process was driving grade inflation, and they questioned how Ofqual could possibly know if a student’s work was worthy of a higher grade than their teacher had predicted - after not seeing any work from students.
Headteacher David Collins, of Knole Academy, in Sevenoaks, Kent, said: ”[Ofqual] talk about grade inflation, but they’ve added to it. They’ve not downgraded any of the CAGs but they have upgraded some, and, to my mind, we shouldn’t see any upgrade. We shouldn’t see any downgrade [and] we shouldn’t see any upgrade. I mean, if a teacher is turning round and saying that a student is worth a 7 or that student is worth an 8 - that is what they get, and, to me, it’s just as inaccurate to suddenly give them a 9.”
“The thing to stress through all of this, and I hope no one has missed it, is that these exam boards and Ofqual have never seen the student’s work. They are giving that student a 9 or a 7 or an 8 when they’ve been predicted something lower by the school, without ever seeing the work that contributes to that, and that just makes no sense. So I would have just accepted the CAGs for GCSE.”
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Steve Wilson, head of Whitley Bay High School, in North Tyneside, said: “I still wonder whether centre-assessed grades across the board would have been the better way forward, with potentially some moderation if there were huge variations. If there is grade inflation, it is partly caused by Ofqual, who have said, ‘Yes, you can keep the higher grades [but] the lower grades won’t be counted, [and] the CAGs will.’”
Alan Gray, head of Sandringham School, in St Albans, Hertfordshire, said if the same situation happened next year, the grading system should rest on CAGs without any statistical intervention.
He said one option for next year might be a “hybrid” scenario including both external exams and school assessments for students.
Mr Gray said: “That’s what we used to have some years ago and it was a very strong and powerful method and I think we lost a lot of that when we shifted to terminal assessment only, so there might be a silver lining here and some good that comes out of it that we trust schools more and we trust teachers to be able to come up with some very sensible and reasonable grades.”
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