Ofqual’s interim chief regulator has said there will be no “Weimar” levels of grade inflation for this year’s GCSEs and A levels.

He made the remarks speaking in a webinar on this year’s grading plans at an NAHT headteachers’ union summit. 

However, Simon Lebus’ remarks contrast in tone with those made by Ofqual chair Ian Bauckham at a parallel event this afternoon, when he warned that this year’s grade inflation would be “unsustainable”.

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Reflecting on concerns about grade inflation, Mr Lebus said: “I would emphasise some of the factors driving inflation last year do not apply, in particular, the sense teachers might have had, in recommending grades, that their grades would be subject to moderation by an algorithm, and some of the challenges associated with a very prescriptive approach to rank ordering.

GCSEs and A levels 2021: Teacher judgement ‘is trustworthy’

“We would also be expecting schools and colleges, as part of the quality assurance process, to identify any outcomes that look atypical...against previous year outcomes and to provide some sort of explanation as to what might have caused that.” 

Mr Lebus said teachers’ judgement was “trustworthy and sound” and that he did not expect there to be rampant inflation this year.

“The main issue would be the effect of ‘Operation Benefit of the Doubt’,” he said.

“Say you’ve got a class of 30 Year 11 GCSE candidates and five of them have produced work, on more than one occasion, under fairly controlled circumstances, which leads you to believe they are capable of getting a grade 9 on the day of the exam.

“In reality, we know that all five may not quite manage it on the day of the exam as they may have a bad day, problems at home or the wrong questions come up. Inevitably, it’s impossible to be sure which of the five will and which won’t. So acting in complete professional integrity, using the knowledge you have of normal grading standards...you would likely submit a grade 9 for all five of them.

“That act of professional judgement, made in perfectly good conscience and with good evidence...will inevitably have an impact when repeated across the system. But that will only lead to some small upward pressure on outcomes, not the Weimar-style inflation or ‘prizes for all’ that some commentators have unhelpfully suggested.”

Mr Lebus said that he expected in some ways for there to be fewer appeals under the 2021 system, as “holistic” judgements “cannot be picked apart like UMS (uniform mark scale) scores”, so it would be less likely for a candidate to make a speculative appeal to gain extra marks to inch over a grade boundary as in a normal year. 

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.