Ofqual’s interim chair has said that teachers’ decisions about what exam grades to award pupils should not be negotiated with students or their parents.

Ian Bauckham told the Association of School and College Leaders annual conference today that people with a vested interests should not be able to interfere with the grades that are awarded in this year’s GCSEs and A-levels.

He said teachers would be required to work within the framework of exam board guidance which would be provided soon.

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“We have said as a principle of transparency candidates should know on what evidence their grade has been determined,” he said.

“However let me be crystal clear about the following point. That principle which we believe is right and appropriate in this year’s approach to grading does not mean that either the selection of evidence or the decision about the grade which the evidence supports are somehow topics for negotiation between teacher and student or teacher and  parents. They are not. These are matters of teachers’ professional judgement.”

Meanwhile Ofqual chief regulator Simon Lebus told another heads’ meeting this afternoon that Ofqual would put measures in place for any parents placing undue pressure on teachers regarding grades to be reported.

“I have also heard concerns expressed about undue parental and student pressure placed on teachers to try to influence their judgement, and we will be providing as part of the rules we set and those put in place by board for reporting all such activity,” he told an NAHT school leaders union summit.

Mr Lebus this was being done so that a difficult task was “not made more difficult by having to deal with unacceptable pressures”.

“Much of the debate is of course predicated on assumptions of the difficulty of applying teacher judgement and some of the heavy responsibility the task places on teachers who find they are not merely preparing their students for the next step of their life journey but allocating the exam grades that provide a passport to it,” Mr Lebus added.

“We know teachers feel the weight of this responsibility and are not always comfortable with some of the moral dilemmas and conflicts with which it confronts them.”

Mr Lebus said this was why exam boards would be providing teachers with a detailed framework to support their judgements. 

He said the evidence used by teachers would likely be similar to that in 2020 but without “the confounding factors” of the anticipated effects of a moderating algorithm or the need to rank order students.