Teachers have criticised an “unacceptable” email from exam board AQA that gave schools just eight working hours to submit sample evidence for grades.

Yesterday evening, schools received an email from AQA requesting samples of student work to be submitted by 10am on Wednesday, with some schools receiving emails at 8.59pm.

Ofqual had said that schools would have two full days - 48 hours - to submit the work. AQA then changed its deadline twice within 12 hours of last night’s outcry.

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@EnserMark⁩ with my exams officer at 20:59. Read the bit… 48 hours… 10am Wednesday ???⁦@DataEducator⁩ pic.twitter.com/ZHBH4iAAbe

- Tanya Wiles (@TanyaPWiles) June 21, 2021

As Jonny Uttley, chief executive of Yorkshire multi-academy trust The Education Alliance, commented, this left schools with just eight working hours to submit evidence.

Following all the assurances that ABs would get this right, @AQA have sent sample requests to our schools at 8:37pm with a deadline of 10am Wednesday. This is not the required 48 hours. It is 8 working hours. Will be writing to CEO Colin Hughes in the morning to raise this. https://t.co/HdNaFiv1M2

- Jonny Uttley ? (@JonnyUttley) June 21, 2021

Kal Hodgson, principal of Cedar Mount Academy in Manchester, commented: “It’s unacceptable. Even with the documents to hand, I assume it has to be scanned and then uploaded. Wonder if the upload portals will be as good as the grade entry profiles?” 

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Ofqual had previously said schools and colleges would “at least” need to submit evidence of students’ grades from one A-level subject for at least five students, as well as evidence from two GCSE subjects, looking at the work of at least five students each as part of its quality assurance process.

It said boards would tell schools and colleges what work was needed from which students on 21 June, and that they would then have just 48 hours to submit the evidence requested, a time frame that had already been criticised by headteachers’ leaders as “scandalous”, with heads branding it a “kick in the teeth”.

The email last night provoked widespread criticism and frustration from teachers on social media.

AQA subsequently issued an apology on Twitter, saying that the original email “wasn’t correct” and that schools had 48 hours from receipt of the email to submit evidence.

You may have received an email from us giving a deadline of 10am Wednesday for submitting evidence. This wasn’t correct - you have 48 hours from when you received the email. Sorry for the confusion.

- AQA (@AQA) June 21, 2021

Sam Strickland, principal of The Duston School in Northamptonshire, described the response as “poor”.

With due respect emails have been received after 8pm. This is poor. Please directly email all Heads of Centre (Heads) with clarity, an apology & clear next steps, not a tweet that few will see. 48 hours should commence as of tomorrow not tonight.

- Sam Strickland (@Strickomaster) June 21, 2021

And science teacher Nick Pointer said the request was “poor form”.

This is a welcome improvement to the original ask. However, the idea that it’s acceptable to start the clock ticking at 8pm at night, or whenever schools have been receiving these emails, is baffling. Incredibly poor form.

- Nick Pointer (@nickpointer_) June 21, 2021

“The idea that it’s acceptable to start the clock ticking at 8pm at night, or whenever schools have been receiving these emails, is baffling,” he said.

Normal working hours should be a consideration. Anything emailed after 5.30pm should be scheduled for first thing next working day so that staff will see during their working day. Time limits from here.

Need to be realistic here about what is needed from all parties. #respect

- Zoe Andrews ? (@ZoeAndrews80) June 21, 2021

AQA ended up changing the deadline again. The exam board has had three different positions on when the sampled evidence would need to be submitted within the space of 12 hours.

Yesterday evening, AQA told schools via email at 9pm that they would have until Wednesday morning to submit evidence. At 10pm, the board said on Twitter that this “wasn’t correct” and that they would have 48 hours to submit evidence from receipt of the email. And this morning, AQA said on Twitter: “We realise that requesting your evidence outside of working hours yesterday wasn’t the right thing to do - so the deadline will be 48 hours from this morning. We’ll be sending an email shortly to confirm this”. 

An AQA spokesperson said: “As with other exam boards, it took longer than expected to know which students and subjects to request evidence for. This meant that we weren’t able to email schools until much later on Monday than we’d hoped - and our emails included an incorrect deadline of 10am on Wednesday. We’re really sorry for this and we’ve been back in touch with schools this morning to confirm that they have until Thursday morning to submit their evidence.”