They follow a dramatic change of heart from the regulator on Monday when it said students would receive their school’s centre-assessed grades (CAGs) rather than grades moderated by exam regulator Ofqual (or whichever was the higher).
But Jenny Corbett, deputy head of Knole Academy in Sevenoaks, Kent, said: “For people to say that we have been unprofessional in our judgements is hurtful.
“I know that me and my colleagues in the science department spent hours scrutinising every child and all the work that we had for them so that we gave them the best deal. And we really thought about [questions like] ‘Well what do we think they’ll come out with?’ [and] ‘What student are they like from the past?’ We really have scrutinised everything we’ve got and for the media to put us into the same group and say we’ve been overgenerous is hurtful.”
But Tes columnist David James, deputy headteacher of Bryanston, an independent boarding school in Dorset, said there was “either a deliberate or unconscious misrepresentation in the mainstream media” of teachers being generous.
He said: “That’s not helping our students see themselves and how they did in these GCSEs, so I think that those people involved in creating the narrative around GCSEs and A levels need to know a little bit more about how those grades were arrived at.”
He added: “Teachers aren’t generous - they are just trying to be fair and there’s a confusion here between expected progress and performance in examinations.”
Steve Wilson, headteacher of Whitley Bay High School, North Tyneside, said his school’s top grades were consistent with previous years.
He said: “I would certainly say any advantaged that some students may feel they have got, or the papers are saying they’ve got - certainly would have been outweighed by the huge disadvantage they would have experienced had they got the algorithm-based grades.”
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