Cambridge Education Guide Autumn/Winter21 Web

EXAM FUTURES

fter two summers of chaos, there’s finally some good news when it comes to GCSE and A-level assessments. Traditional exams should be back in time for the class of 2022 to sit as normal. Parents, pupils and educators could be forgiven for taking this news with a pinch of salt. They won’t have forgotten the massive outcry in 2020, when high- achieving students were shattered to get results way below their predicted grades. Some missed out on first-choice universities when marks fell short of their offer grades by miles, leading to widespread accusations of unfairness. The prime minister blamed what he described as “a mutant algorithm” (which sounds almost as worrying as a new Covid variant) that had caused thousands of A-level marks to be downgraded. This summer, teachers’ knowledge of their pupils’ ability was harnessed, in order to ensure GCSE and A-level grades were awarded as fairly as possible. Official guidance from the government stressed that no dodgy algorithms had played any part in the awarding of the year’s marks. This time around, we were assured, the system was fail-safe, with all grades supposedly checked – and double-checked – by schools’ senior leadership teams, before being sent off to the exam boards for final approval. The problem now is the huge increase in the number of top grades received in 2020 and 2021. Twice as many were awarded at least three A grades or better in their A-levels compared to 2019, and more than three times as many gained three A* grades compared with 2019. The result is grade inflation, something that had been rampant up until 2015, when reformed, tougher, more traditional A-levels (the so-called gold standard of the English exam system) were introduced, and grade inflation was meant to become a thing of the past.

TRADITIONAL EXAMS SHOULD BE BACK IN TIME FOR THE CLASS OF 2022 TO SIT AS NORMAL

Now it’s back with a vengeance, some are questioning whether the time has come for a completely different way of looking at how you measure children’s academic performance – and there’s no shortage of suggestions and approaches. One idea on the table is to reform A-levels to reflect the new grading for GCSEs, which did away with letters and replaced them with a numerical system – running from nine (the top grade) to one (the lowest). ‘Good’ grade passes

(translating to grades A*-C in old money) are anything from five upwards. Adopting the same system for A-levels could, say supporters, add a spot of nuance and allow more subtle distinctions between the merely bright and the exceptionally able. It could also avoid confusion and grade inflation, helping everyone draw a line under the general oddness of the past two years. Another plan is to accept grade inflation as a fact of life, and instead look at

CAMBR IDGE EDUCAT ION GUIDE 57

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