The anticipation for results days has been building and we’re only one sleep away from A level and applied general qualifications and a couple more for GCSEs. The publication of exam results always prompts a wave of national soul-searching about educational standards and how fair the system is. It’s also everyone’s opportunity to offer their analysis of what’s wrong and their prescriptions for change.

This year, like last, is likely to throw up some surprises. Grades have been submitted and will be made public tomorrow. Colleges and schools know what they’ve sent off and most queries from awarding organisations have now been resolved.

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A Level and GCSE results days 2021: LIVE

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There were different views about the approach that was finally settled on this year, as well as how long it took to finalise. However, in this second year of cancelled exams, I think it’s important that we take the opportunity to celebrate the achievements of students and all those who made these results possible in very difficult circumstances.

Here are some of the reasons to be positive:

• Students were assessed against common standards. In many cases, there was actually more formal assessment than usual, although this was sometimes at the expense of teaching time. Staff teams worked collaboratively to devise, mark, and administer assessments, check, moderate and submit their judgements in order to achieve as much consistency as possible across their subject and their centre.
• Students were assessed on what they had been taught. This was a sensible principle, given the many different types and degrees of disruption which students faced and it was combined with the requirement to use clear performance thresholds for key grades and to cover as much as possible of the required content. This goes some way to addressing the differential impact of the pandemic on groups of students, even if it does introduce some potential variation between centres.
• Students will receive grades which reflect their achievements. There were no grade ‘quotas’ and no pressure on centres to conform to a historic grade pattern - just a requirement to evidence candidates’ knowledge and skills and to assess them in test conditions against nationally set grade criteria as consistently as possible.

This year, as in 2020, we have seen a massive transfer of work from external markers and examiners working for just a few awarding organisations, to college and school staff based in hundreds of centres. As the task of translating student achievement into grades has shifted, the staff involved have risen to the challenge magnificently. Because they are committed to consistency and fairness they have taken the process very seriously. We can therefore be confident that the resulting grades will represent the achievements of students in genuine assessments graded against common objective criteria. Any talk of “grade chaos”, “generous grading” or “falling standards” should not be justified.

This year’s process could not be expected to address all the shortcomings of our public exam system. It hasn’t made things “fairer” than they were and it won’t be able to correct for the widening systemic inequalities which the pandemic has exposed. We know that the pandemic has caused differential disruption, but we won’t know the full extent of any performance gaps until we see the grade distribution. It’s because these inequalities need to be exposed and understood that a full Equality Impact Assessment must be published simultaneously with the August results. Revealing these patterns of inequality should help us to plan how best to target investment in educational recovery next year and beyond.

No algorithm

The system won’t generate the same national distribution of grades as in previous years - that would have required the application of an algorithm. Rather than talking of ‘grade inflation’, we need to understand that grading based on several assessment opportunities rather than a few terminal exams will not produce the same results profile. This doesn’t mean it’s less accurate, it’s just the consequence of a different approach.

We also need to recognise that this year, as in every previous year, the process will not guarantee every student the grades they feel they deserve or need for their preferred progression route. There are always students who feel they have been wrongly graded and who will want to exercise their right of appeal; this isn’t necessarily a sign of systemic unfairness.

So let’s see this year’s results for what they are: a meaningful assessment of students’ learning by skilled professionals applying national standards in challenging circumstances. This year’s students have had to overcome so many obstacles on the road to their grades, the least we can do is resolve to celebrate their achievements.

Eddie Playfair is senior policy manager at the Association of Colleges