Teachers and education experts have condemned the government’s decision to give GCSE and A-level students advance sight of external tasks used as a basis for their grading, saying this will lead to a “car crash”.

After the cancellation of exams this summer, Ofqual said GCSE and A-level grades would be awarded through teacher assessment, with students sitting optional external tasks set by exam boards, which teachers could use as a basis for assigning a final grade.

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In an online webinar today, Ofqual stated that students will have advance sight of the external tasks and their mark schemes after the Easter holidays.

“By the end of this month the detailed guidance from JCQ alongside the assessment materials and grade descriptors will be made available to [schools] so you have that full package in order to be able to prepare,” an Ofqual spokesperson said.

“After Easter, as we consulted on, we will also be making the optional exam board assessment materials available openly in order that students and others can access them, and so that will be happening after Easter - the delay is there to obviously try and avoid students sort of cramming with them over the holidays which we didn’t think was a healthy thing we wanted to encourage.”

But teachers and education experts have condemned the policy as a “car crash” and “anti-education” on social media.

David James, a deputy head of an independent school, said that the plan was “unbelievable if true”.

Did @ofqual just announce that all the assessment material for the mini-tests will be published to everyone, not just to schools, on exam boards public websites? Really?! to students as well?! Unbelievable if true.

- David James (@drdavidajames) March 17, 2021

Stuart Lock, chief executive of Advantage Schools trust in Bedfordshire, said: “Oh goodness. But I’m not allowed to say I told you so because this car crash wasn’t inevitable, of course. Even though lots of people said it was.”

And Sam Freedman, former adviser to Michael Gove,  said the “whole thing is a car crash”.

Mr James said that the whole process was “anti-education” in that students would see papers and questions used as a basis for their grade in advance, and would then be able to appeal the grades if they felt they were unfair.

So they want us to offer exams which the students will have already seen, to mark them using mark schemes the students will have seen, and then grade them which, if the students don’t like those grades, they can appeal or ask for them to be changed? It’s like anti-education.

- David James (@drdavidajames) March 17, 2021

“Correct and people will go along with it because it sounds mean to say kids have got inflated grades even though it’s still [very] unfair,” Mr Freedman said. 

Meanwhile, the Mathematical Association said the decision could “embed disadvantage”.

Seems probable that the decision to release these exam board materials openly after Easter will embed disadvantage. Those students with most support at home will be provided with full worked solutions to memorise.

- The Mathematical Association (@Mathematical_A) March 17, 2021

An Ofqual spokesperson said: “We asked in our joint consultation with the Department for Education: ‘To what extent do you agree or disagree that exam boards should publish all of their papers shortly before the assessments in order to manage the risk of some students being advantaged through papers being leaked?’.

“66 per cent of respondents either agreed or strongly agreed with this proposal, which is here.

“We have decided that the materials should be published in this way because, once they have been made available to teachers it will not be possible to stop them being leaked, particularly once they start to be used.

“Some students would then have early access to the materials - giving them an unfair advantage while disadvantaging others.”

“A wide range of questions will be made available by exam boards so while students will have access to them all in advance, they will not know which ones if any (as the use of exam board materials is optional) their school or college will use.”