Tories forced into Exam grade U-turn - LBC debate

After the Tories were forced by mounting youth protests into a U-turn over exam grading, I was invited to debate alongside Katharine Birbalsingh on LBC radio this morning. 

Here's what I had to say: 

 

How to improve education - and how to make things worse

The decision by the Government to rush into publishing tables of schools' provisional GCSE results, even before appeals and remarks have been finalised, is no surprise. League tables have been used by successive governments to unfairly compare schools in order to drive through damaging education policies. These latest results will be used to drive through Tory plans for further school privatisation and to reduce costs through performance-pay cuts for teachers.

League tables are not the basis for genuine school improvement. Nevertheless, schools and Local Authorities will be under pressure to analyse these tables and compile plans to improve their ranking next year. That's certainly the case in my borough of Lewisham. The danger is that plans are made which only compound existing difficulties rather than ones that address the real issues.

Poverty is still the main factor driving educational outcomes

First of all, schools must not be bullied into accepting that they can somehow defy gravity and overcome the main factor driving educational outcomes - poverty. Of course, the politicians who are presiding over growing inequality will hypocritically claim that pointing out such economic realities is somehow showing 'poverty of ambition'. Teachers who strive every day to help youngsters facing challenges like poor housing and low household incomes don't need lectures from Tories who are cutting tax credits. The facts are clear.

As "Exam factories ?", the independent research conducted for the NUT by Professor Merryn Hutchings points out "despite making schools accountable for attainment gaps and the provision of funding, the attainment gap at GCSE level between pupils eligible for Free School Meals and those who are not has remained at about 27 percentage points throughout the last decade ... Gorard (2010) drew on a range of statistical evidence about attainment, and concluded that, “to a very large extent, schools simply reflect the local population of their intakes” (p.59), and schools cannot do much to change this. Research has shown that home background is a much larger influence than the school attended and thus attainment gaps are very difficult to reduce. Rasbash et al (2010) examined variation in pupils’ progress at secondary school and concluded that only 20 per cent of this is attributable to school quality ... Other estimates of the ‘school effect’ are lower: Wiliam (2010) reported that OECD analysis showed that in the USA, only eight per cent of the variability in maths scores related to the quality of education provided by the school, and analysis of data in England showed that the school effect contributes only seven per cent of the variance in attainment between pupils".

In Lewisham, and beyond, Local Authorities therefore need to remember that decisions they are making over cuts to youth services, social care and libraries all have an impact on educational outcomes too. For example, award-winning writer Alan Gibbons points out that "children who go to a library are twice as likely as those who don’t to read well. It is not just picking up a book. It is the social experience of reading, talking about the books, browsing, comparing what you have read with family and friends. Librarians are gate keepers in that process. They open doors to new worlds, new possibilities". Lewisham councillors, please take note.

'Gaming the system' - malpractice

In October 2014 Lewisham's CYP Scrutiny Commitee was shown a series of charts analysing KS2 results, including this one comparing achievements at level 5 (the columns) with the percentage of 'pupil premium pupils' (the orange line):

With some variation, the trend is as expected - most of the highest columns are on the right of the chart, in schools where poverty levels are generally lower. Yet one school (circled) stands out as having the highest results while being a school with high levels of poverty. Were council officers and councillors so unaware of the unavoidable link between poverty and outcomes not to question this anomaly? Clearly someone did question it, as the school's results for 2014 were annulled following an investigation by the Standards and Testing Agency. 

'Gaming the system' - so what is acceptable? 

Nobody would accept that outright 'cheating' is an acceptable way to improve exam results. Yet the temptation to maladminister tests and coursework will always be there when the pressures on schools to improve results are so high, and particularly when we are told that 'poverty is no excuse'. However, there are many other ways of 'gaming the system' analysed in the 'Exam Factories ?' research that many schools consider acceptable, if not essential, practice.

Narrowing curriculum choice, 'teaching to the test', 'booster classes' and focusing efforts on borderline students are just some of the ways that schools aim to improve their scores. Pastoral support can suffer as a result as well as the constant emphasis on test scores having a damaging effect on pupils' emotional health and well-being. Whether these methods actually improve lasting knowledge and understanding is also debatable. Certainly many secondary teachers question the KS2 data that they are given for some Year 7 pupils, yet these provide the baseline used to measure progress and set future GCSE targets. Primary colleagues will soon find baseline assessment of Reception children being used in the same way.

Given the link between intakes and outcome, of course the other way to 'game the system' is to use powers over admissions and exclusions to alter your pupil population. earlier this year, the Head of Burlington Danes academy spoke out against the 'underhand tactics' used by some schools operating 'covert selection' practices.

The schools that are most easily able to use such covert methods are schools who are their own admissions authority, particularly academies. The Tories are determined to drive through further academisation, using GCSE results as a weapon to force through attacks on supposedly 'coasting schools'. Yet there is increasing evidence confirming that academisation does not improve educational outcomes. That's also shown by the GCSE results for Lewisham's academy schools (and, conversely, by the improved results at Sedgehill School, a school that would now appear to have been unfairly singled out for damaging public criticism).

In planning for improved GCSE results, schools need to make sure that these outcomes are not achieved at the expense of other vital goals - not least the well-being of the young people we teach (and of those who teach them) and genuine equality of opportunity.

'Speed-ups' - how much more can you ask of staff?

Without looking at the overall context and the real lives of our young people, these league tables are treating schools like factories churning out a 'product'. In a competitive market, we're all told to increase our production targets or go under.

Putting aside the inappropriateness of such a marketised model for public services, let's suppose schools really are just meant to be 'exam factories'.  A forward-thinking manufacturer would know that the real answer to increase productivity is investment. In schools, that would mean more resources, smaller class sizes, more staff, more time for preparation and training. 

Of course, far from increasing investment, this Government is determined to make further cuts. The planned 'National Funding Formula' threatens school budgets in London in particular. A paper tabled at the latest Lewisham Schools Forum warns, alongside other budget pressures, that schools in Lewisham might "need to find savings of up to 20% over 5 years". Such a level of cuts would have a disastrous effect on London schooling and is one more reason why John McDonnell was right to oppose Osborne's fiscal charter.

The alternative approach, from the short-sighted 'captains of industry' in Downing Street, is simply to speed-up the school 'production-line' even more. But how much harder can the workforce be driven?

Already, according to the Government's own figures, teachers are working well over 50 hours a week, in breach of the Working Time Directive. How can any teacher perform at their best when they are exhausted by working such long hours? Why are schools continuing to ignore their legal responsibilities by consistently expecting teachers to work over 48 hours a week?

Yet reports from schools suggest that the pressures on teachers are only increasing. New marking policies that require detailed comments from teachers are adding further to the workload burden. Yet these are being introduced at the same time as some schools are reducing the amount of non-contact time available for teachers to prepare and assess.

What will be the consequences of further 'speed-ups'? Already, as the Guardian highlighted, “Department for Education figures show that in the 12 months to November 2014 almost 50,000 qualified teachers in England left the state sector. That is almost one in 10 of all teachers – the highest rate for 10 years and an increase of more than 25% over five years”. There are a number of Lewisham schools that saw around a quarter to a third of their teachers leave over the summer. Children, particularly the most disadvantaged, need familiar faces and stable relationships in their lives. That stability is being lost in our schools.

As teacher shortages continue to grow, teachers will continue to vote with their feet and leave for posts where the pressures are more manageable. Trade unions have a responsibility to organise to protect teachers from excessive workload, in the best interests of the children they teach as well. What unions locally would welcome is being able to work with the Authority to ensure that unreasonable expectations are not being set. That way, we can work together to make sure all Lewisham schools are seen as an attractive place to choose to teach.

'Ticking-boxes' - or using time productively?

One of teachers' main complaints is not just that the hours of work are excessive but that too much of the pressure is from activities that seem to have little benefit for the students we teach. A culture of 'accountability' has developed (outlined in the 'Exam factories?' research ) where many teachers feel they have to concentrate on accounting for what they are doing, rather than concentrating on teaching and learning.

Monitoring of marking, lesson planning, data collection and lesson observations take up a lot of time but the main outcome is too often just added stress rather than useful feedback and collaborative discussion. That stress impacts on teachers' relationships with children.

Over 60% of staff surveyed by Professor Hutchings 'agreed a lot' that "I spend a disproportionate amount of time on documentation related to accountability rather than on planning for my lesson", nearly 70% that "my stress levels sometimes impact on the way I interact with pupils" and over 75% that "I do not have enough time to focus on the needs of individual pupils". 

One teacher quoted explained "I am totally exhausted all the time. I work 60–70 hours a week just to keep up with what
I am expected to do…. The pressure put upon teachers to provide accountability for so many factors is unmanageable and seemingly pointless. Many teachers in my workplace are feeling permanently stressed and demoralised. More of us are looking to leave as more and more workload is being given with no regard to its impact on teachers or the children".

This is a picture that will be familiar to far too many teachers, including teachers in Lewisham. Genuine school improvement cannot be generated in such an atmosphere of fear and demoralisation.

No to performance-pay and imposed targets

If somebody presents you with a table showing the % of students making 3 levels, or 4 levels, of progress across a school, the only appropriate response is to ask them why they have such a lack of understanding of school measurement that they could think this is in any way useful.
- See more at: http://www.localschoolsnetwork.org.uk/2015/03/how-to-use-data-badly-levels-of-progress/#sthash.DcPhNfIG.dpuf

As unions warned, performance-pay in particular is adding to teachers' fear and being used to bully staff into taking on excessive workload. Last year, thankfully most Lewisham teachers were awarded pay-progression, in contrast to reports from some academy chains. However, the fear remains that more pay rises will be denied or even, under Nicky Morgan's latest proposals threatening demotion from the Upper Pay Spine, actual pay cuts imposed.

Teachers (and schools) are also often being judged against unreasonable numerical targets based on unreliable statistics and statistical methods. Lewisham NUT has circulated advice to teachers warning against accepting such objectives.  We have warned that too much credence is being given to setting expected 'levels of progress' which take no account into the differential progress that children from different starting-points are likely to make. 

This has been explained by statistician Henry Stewart for the Local Schools Network in his post entitled 'using data badly': "If somebody presents you with a table showing the % of students making 3 levels, or 4 levels, of progress across a school, the only appropriate response is to ask them why they have such a lack of understanding of school measurement that they could think this is in any way useful ... setting targets entirely unrelated to what the data tells us is more reminiscent of Soviet Stakhonovite targets or those of the Chinese Great Leap Forward than targets rooted in sound educational knowledge". 

Again, Local Authorities and school managers, please take note. 

So what does work? - The London Challenge ?

Far too much school policy has been driven over decades by an agenda based on marketisation, privatisation and on increasing teacher workload rather than increased investment. The fruits of those policies are, regrettably, a demoralised and divided system which is now under severe pressure. 

Nevertheless, there have been examples of policies that helped produce more genuine gains. One of those that is worth looking at is the 'London Challenge'. In another piece of research, Professor Hutchings argues that this initiative helps to explain the 'London effect' whereby London schools generally 'outperform' schools elsewhere, especially looking at disadvantaged pupils (although other researchers point to other factors such as the mixed social intakes in many London schools and particular improvements in primary schools).

Hutchings concludes that: "perhaps the most effective aspect of [the] Challenge was that it recognised that individuals and school communities tend to thrive when they feel trusted, supported and encouraged. The ethos of the programme was a key factor in its success, and contrasted with common government discourse of ‘naming and shaming’ ‘failing’ schools. Expectations of school leaders, teachers and pupils were high; successes were celebrated; and it was recognised that if teachers are to inspire pupils they themselves need to be motivated and inspired".

That's a conclusion that we hope will be taken on board by any school or Local Authority analysing its GCSE results. Teachers need to feel trusted, valued and listened to. As I have written in a letter to Lewisham councillors, "the NUT and our fellow teaching unions are concerned to make sure that the voice of classroom teachers and their unions is heard in these discussions. Teachers can provide a unique insight into the difficulties they face in supporting students, and in explaining the support and input they would benefit from". 

I hope that Lewisham councillors will open up a dialogue with teaching unions and make sure that classroom teachers can input into discussions on school improvement, not just school leaders and council officers.

GCSEs - Gove sets up more children and schools to 'fail'

A protest that I helped to organise outside the DfE in August 2012

As I wrote on this blog back in June, at the outset of the supposed 'consultation' over changes to GCSEs: "While engagement and success of the many will be what teachers, parents and students want, Michael Gove is working to a very different agenda. As the economy crumbles, the post-war consensus in favour of high quality public services and comprehensive education-for-all is becoming a distant memory". ( See: http://electmartin1.blogspot.co.uk/2013/06/gcses-creating-aspirations-which.html ).

That's the fundamental ideological difference that needs to be grasped to understand what is driving Gove to impose these damaging policies - along with his other attacks like performance-pay.

It certainly doesn't make any educational sense to rush through yet more curriculum changes without proper trialling and consultation with teaching professionals. Nor can it be right to largely ditch coursework, even though it has allowed students to show skills that can't be so easily assessed in a brief final examination.

However, if your real policy is to turn back the clock and go back to the days when only a small proportion of school-leavers succeeded, then Gove's policies make perfect sense. 

That's why you would scrap most two-tier papers and introduce a new 9-level scale that Ofqual say will allow “greater differentiation” at the highest levels. That's what Gove really means when he says "the new GCSEs in English and mathematics set higher expectations. They demand more from all students and provide further challenge for those aiming to achieve top grades" ( http://www.theguardian.com/education/2013/nov/01/new-gcse-curriculum-maths-more-demanding-michael-gove ) .

But would a Secretary of State for Education really want more children and schools to fail ? It would certainly help Gove spread more of his propaganda about 'failure' designed to open-up more schools to the threat of privatisation. However, there are other deep-seated ideological considerations that have underscored Tory educational policy for some time.

The following quote from "Thirty Years On" by Chitty and Benn, rumoured to be from a senior adviser to Sir Keith Joseph, spelt out that big business no longer requires a widely educated workforce:

"There has to be selection because we are beginning to create aspirations which increasingly society cannot match … When young people cannot find work at all … or work which meets their abilities or expectations … then we are only creating frustrations with perhaps disturbing social consequences … people must be educated once more to know their place”

Since that time, economic crisis has taken hold of the world economy. That gives even more reason for Gove and Co. to believe that it is now time to draw up the ladder so that only a select few youngsters are able to succeed.

It is now the responsibility of trade unions to use their strength, backed up by their communities, to defend the gains of the past against those like Gove who are trying to steal them away from us.

Back to school - and Gove's moving goalposts

Most youth in my borough are enjoying the last hours or days of their summer break and there's still a long last-minute queue at the school uniform shop around the corner. 

For their teachers, term has already begun with the usual INSET sessions of reflections, reports and routines. School management teams have been trying to encourage or cajole staff into meeting the latest set of targets. Of course, teachers in some schools will also be fearing that, under Gove's divisive new performance-pay legislation, 'failure' could mean their pay progression being denied.

One of the sessions I attended today should have carried a health warning. A member of the SMT decided it would be a good idea to show us all a video of Gove discussing his education policies ! 

The aim, to be fair, was to get teachers to question what Gove was aiming for with his curriculum changes. I resisted the urge to shout out 'privatisation' and 'failure'. However, one teacher concluded, accurately enough, that the outcome would certainly be 'confusion'.

Once again, school managers, staff and students  are all left to work out how to cope with ever-moving goalposts. For a secondary school like mine, what combination of exams now counts towards 5 A*-Cs? What counts towards the EBacc? What further curriculum changes are in the pipeline?

The changes might be more acceptable if teachers felt they were in the best interests of all our students. But Gove has a ideological agenda which is aimed at failing many of them.

The demand by Gove that post-16 students will have to keep studying English and Maths until they get a grade C will put further pressures on overstretched schools and staff. As the support and resources won't be provided to give students the individualised support that many will need to achieve that standard, Gove's plans will just enforce a feeling of failure on many of the youth being told that they have to remain in education.

No matter how critical they may be of Gove's regime in private, too many school managements seem prepared to just take their place in the chain of bullying and pass on the imposed demands - and divisive pay policies - on to staff and pupils. Yet, with grade boundaries and pass-rates also coming under political influence, Gove is making it harder to meet those demands. After all, half of the school population will still continue to be below national averages!

Meanwhile, Gove is ideologically insisting that privatised 'free schools' are the answer to the shortage in pupil places in areas like London, instead of providing the significant capital investment in Local Authority schooling that is the obvious and urgently-required solution.

Gove needs to be answered with action. When the dates for this term's strikes are finally announced later this week, NUT and NASUWT members can start to finalise plans for the action needed to defend teachers and education.
 
 

GCSE Results - Gove pulls up the ladder once again

Protesting against GCSE grade robbery last summer

After last year's angry response to unexpected changes in GCSE grade boundaries, this year Ofqual and the Examining Boards made sure they had issued plenty of advance warning about another cut in GCSE grades. However, that advance notice will be of little comfort to those students who are disappointed by the exam results that they receive today.

Results released by the Joint Council for Qualifications (JCQ) confirm small drops in the proportion of students receiving A* to C grades for English and Maths. In science subjects, where syllabuses have been changed for this year’s exams, the fall was from 60.7% A* to C grades last year right down to 53.1%.

This further tightening up of GCSE grades will inevitably penalise students, schools and teachers whose success is judged on these A* to C results. While, in pursuit of privatisation, Government insists that schools reach ever-higher GCSE results, the new policy of effectively maintaining fixed pass rates makes these targets almost impossible to achieve.

The numbers of 'early entries' - where Year 10 pupils are entered for GCSEs alongside Year 11s, together with increases in numbers taking humanities and foreign languages, are all a consequence of schools reacting to meet the latest Government demands. While an increase in entries in these subjects is welcome, it doesn't stem from a proper debate about the importance of a balanced curriculum, just schools 'playing the game' of meeting the latest changes in targets. So, for example, at the same time I know of several schools cutting back on teaching less -favoured subjects like technology.

The debate that will now open up again around the technicalities of grade boundaries and pass rates must not be allowed to hide the fundamental truth - that the Government no longer wants so many of our youngsters to succeed. Faced with a protracted economic crisis, big business no longer requires a widely educated workforce. So now it's time for Gove and Co. to draw up the ladder once again so that only a select few youngsters are able to succeed.

Students, parents and teachers must expose these attempts to rob the next generation of a decent future and campaign for properly-paid employment, training and educational opportunities for every youngster.

Finally, these results must also be a further warning to teachers about the dangers of performance-related-pay. It's absolutely clear that the results that teachers will be judged upon are open to all sorts of influences outside a teachers' control - including direct interference in GCSE pass rates.

National Association of Head Teachers' General Secretary, Russell Hobby ( http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-23759165) has commented that: "A lot of us assumed that there was more objectivity to the grades people get. Exams are often held up as being this objective standard, but there's a lot of subjectivity in the marking and grading of exams. It's quite shocking.". However, that hasn't stopped the NAHT issuing model pay policies that recommend that teachers' pay could be determined by exactly such subjective decisions!

For example, how many of my science teaching colleagues ( and I'm yet to find out how my Year 11s have got on * ) will be penalised for a drop in GCSE grades that had been imposed in advance by Ofqual ?

NUT and NASUWT members need to respond to today's news by resolving to make an even more determined effort to build Autumn's programme of strike action against performance-pay and other Government attacks, and to go out and explain to parents why we are fighting for the future of their youngsters' education as well.

 * I know the results now - so congratulations to any of my students who might come across this post!

GCSEs: 'Creating aspirations which society cannot match'

"There has to be selection because we are beginning to create aspirations which increasingly society cannot match … When young people cannot find work at all … or work which meets their abilities or expectations … then we are only creating frustrations with perhaps disturbing social consequences … people must be educated once more to know their place” 

Senior civil servant quoted in Thirty Years On, Chitty and Benn

 

Protesting against the GCSE marking scandal last August

Just as tens of thousands of 16 year-olds sit their GCSE exams, Tory education wrecker Michael Gove has announced a further shake-up to the examination system. In doing so, he is shamefully sending out a signal that these students' achievements will be, in his mind, 'second-rate'. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Gove and the Conservative Government can't accept that, through the hard work of students, teachers and schools, and under emormous pressure to achieve imposed targets, GCSE results have improved year-on-year. In the past, improved examination results would have been a cause to celebrate but widespread achievement no longer matches the needs and wishes of the Government and its big business backers.

As the quote above, rumoured to be from a senior adviser to Sir Keith Joseph, spelt out long before the current economic crisis took hold of the world economy, big business no longer requires a widely educated workforce. Now it's time for Gove and Co. to draw up the ladder so that only a select few youngsters are able to succeed.

It would be wrong to idealise the GCSE examination system, Any exam regime is there, in the final analysis, to decide who is given the opportunity for certain careers and higher education, and who isn't. However, at least the introduction of the GCSE marked an acceptance that all students should have the chance to achieve a qualification of equal worth to their peers. 

Gove has had to abandon his attempts to ditch GCSEs altogether but is insisting that exam boards revert to the old-style method of assessing all learning on the basis of terminal examinations at the end of Year 11. However the various changes to assessment methods, while significant, aren't the fundamental point. No, the key to Gove's agenda is to be found in the short sentence in today's article on the BBC News website (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-22854908 ): "the pass mark is to be pushed higher". Whatever happens, Gove wants to make sure that far fewer students succeed.

Coursework will be ditched under Gove's proposals even though it has allowed students to show skills that can't be so easily assessed in a brief final examination. However, it also has to be said that, as schools came under increasing pressure to improve results, teachers have been expected to go to increasing lengths to coach and support students to complete the work required. Now the pressure will be on to cram students for the terminal examination instead, rather than being able to spread the work over separate modules and coursework elements as well.

Of course, if teachers, schools and students were consulted properly, it may well be that changes and improvements to the current system could be agreed upon. In an NUT press release, Christine Blower was right to criticise Gove's attempts to rush through changes without proper consultation, saying "We would like the Secretary of State to have a longer consultation period to achieve a consensus on what we all want – the best possible exam system in which the greatest number of young people engage".

Unfortunately, while engagement and success of the many will be what teachers , parents and students want, Michael Gove is working to a very different agenda. As the economy crumbles, the post-war consensus in favour of high quality public services and comprehensive education-for-all is becoming a distant memory. 

It is now the responsibility of trade unions to use their strength, backed up by their communities, to defend the gains of the past against those like Gove who are trying to steal them away from us. 

  

GCSEs: Gove turns back the clock

"We are beginning to create aspirations which increasingly society cannot match … When young people cannot find work at all … or work which meets their abilities or expectations … then we are only creating frustrations with perhaps disturbing social consequences … people must be educated once more to know their place”  Unnamed civil servant, quoted in 'Thirty Years On', Benn/Chitty

Protest outside Ofqual in Coventry yesterday Sept 17 2012

All too predictably, Michael Gove has chosen to use the furore around this summer's English exams to announce his plans to ration the number of top grades and ditch GCSEs altogether.

As the quote below from 1992 shows, this attack from the Tory right has been being coming right from the very introduction of GCSEs. Like any exam system, GCSEs were still there to limit opportunities - but at least attempted to widen those opportunities to a broader number of young people. Now, with the economy in crisis, the Tories have decided that it is time to turn back the clock.
 
"The Tories present this in terms of a crusade against falling educational standards ... In reality, when Tories talk about doing something to improve standards, they really mean doing something to enforce greater inequality ...

In the summer of 1992, for example, they attacked the results for GCSE. Tory thinking is if results are improving, standards must be falling. Ironically, the relative success of the GCSE has been the very reason why many on the Tory right now want to see it scrapped... 

But it was the Tories themselves, under Keith Joseph, who replaced the existing two tier O level/CSE system with GCSE, arguing that it would lead to higher standards and better qualifications. However, at the time there was economic growth and staff shortages - employers wanted a qualified, educated (to a point) workforce. Now too many young people are being turned out with too many qualifications and high expectations but with too few opportunities. No wonder right wing advisers are advocating a return to O levels and "greater differentiation"  A Socialist Education Programme - Militant Teacher 1992

GCSE latest - TES leaks and Welsh Government expose Ofqual

Leaked letters revealed by the TES - along with a decision by the Welsh Government to call for a regrading of English Language GCSEs for students that come under their jurisdiction - have increased the pressure on Ofqual - and Michael Gove - to come clean on the GCSE scandal.

At the very least, there has been unfair statistical manipulation of this June's English Language results. Many suspect political manipulation as well. As a result, our students and our schools have been cheated.

It is clear from the TES revelations ( http://www.tes.co.uk/article.aspx?storyCode=6289700 ) that Ofqual DID intervene at a very late stage to pressurise Edexcel into shifting their grade boundaries.
 
In a separate development, the Welsh Government has reached the conclusion that "“it seems probable that a serious distortion to the outcomes of the candidates in Wales has been caused”, and that a 3.9 percentage point fall in outcomes for all grades C and above in 2012, when compared to 2011, “is unjustifiable and almost certainly unfair to candidates”".

As the National NUT press release this morning correctly states:

“It is glaringly obvious from this exchange of letters that Ofqual has been less than transparent about its involvement in this year’s GCSE scandal.

“The letters reveal that Ofqual was trying to ration qualifications on the basis of the SATs tests that the students took five years ago. This is tantamount to saying that education does not matter. Michael Gove’s policy of setting a floor target that requires 40% of children to grade A*-C, and his position of supporting Ofqual in stopping any increase in the number of grade Cs, are in direct contradiction.

“Young people and teachers have been cheated by an examination system which is becoming subject to political influence regardless of the consequences. It is not just Glenys Stacey, head of Ofqual, with answers to give at this week’s Education Select Committee. Michael Gove can no longer be allowed to stand on the sidelines. It is high time he took the lead by the Welsh Government. He must do the right thing by students in England by ordering a re-grading of this year’s GCSE English examinations.”

GCSE scandal latest: NUT meets with Ofqual

Following the refusal of Ofqual to agree to demands from the NUT and others to regrade this June's GCSE English results, NUT National Officers met Ofqual today.

The NUT Executive will be discussing the NUT's ongoing campaign to demand a regrade and an independent inquiry into the GCSE scandal at meetings later this week.

Pasted below is today's NUT national press release and a summary of some of the key points that have been prepared for Executive members by the NUT's  Education and Equalities Department:

"Commenting on the NUT’s meeting today with Ofqual to consider the evidence base of its decisions taken on this year’s GCSEs, Kevin Courtney, Deputy General Secretary of the National Union of Teachers, the largest teachers’ union, said:

“The NUT is very pleased that Ofqual has drawn to the attention of both the Education Secretary and Ofsted their concerns that if they are to meet their statutory responsibility of maintaining standards by ‘stabilising results’ then that has consequences for the way schools are assessed. This highlights the inherent contradiction in the Government’s policies on examination standards as they tell Ofqual not to let overall results go up, while at the same time telling schools they must reach a new 40% floor target of A*-C grades which obviously requires overall results to increase.

“Schools, teachers and most of all pupils are caught up in the middle of this and have suffered the serious consequences of such incoherent policies. Schools and pupils need to know where they stand. To attempt to work towards goals which can change significantly half way through a school year is ridiculous and totally unfair.

“We will be seeking urgent meetings with the Education Secretary and Ofsted to talk about these contradictory policies. The NUT will be continuing to press, alongside NAHT and ASCL, for an independent inquiry and a regrading, not resits, of this year’s English GCSEs.”

Some key points to consider:

• Exam boards have been under pressure from Michael Gove who wants an end to decades of ‘grade inflation’ in GCSEs. An estimated 10,000 fewer teenagers achieved at least a grade C in the subject. School floor targets were raised to 40 per cent this year. Schools will be judged as underperforming and subject to merger or closure if fewer than 40 per cent of pupils achieve at least five good GSCE passes, including Maths and English. Gove plans to move the target to 50 per cent by 2015. At the last count, there were 216 schools below the previous floor target of 35 per cent. Hundreds more schools could miss the 40 per cent this year. Some of the academies themselves have missed the target. 
• The NUT believes that a close reading of Ofqual’s interim report reveals that the GCSEs fiasco is actually about the rationing of education. Despite the fact that schools (and students) are working harder to get at least a C and despite the fact that this is “so important to students’ future”, Ofqual will not allow more students to get C or above. This rationing of education is a return to the days where it was said that there is a natural ability that children are born with and there is nothing that can be done about it. Combined with the abolition of the EMA, the trebling of tuition fees and one million youth unemployed, this is the biggest attack on working class ambition for generations.
• In its report, Ofqual glosses over the 1.5 per cent drop in the number of children getting a grade C or above as ‘in line with expectations’ and claims that ‘this is not the issue’!
• Ofqual claims that it has a more sophisticated approach than ‘norm referencing’ (page 8) which would at least have resulted in the same proportion of children getting C and above as last year. It calls its new approach ‘comparable outcomes’ and claims it ‘produces similar results year-on-year’ if the students have similar abilities each year. It says, “Before setting the grade boundaries, examiners use data on the prior attainments of the cohort of students to check the outcomes” (page 31). The provisional GCSE results are compared with prior attainment for matched candidates, that is, those for whom there are known Key Stage 2 results (page 10). And this year, it says there were 23,000 fewer students from independent and selective schools (page 10). So they adjusted the grade boundaries up to compensate!
• This is the explanation provided as to why Ofqual set the boundaries such that 10,000 fewer students got a grade C confounding the expectations of experienced teachers who had spent two years preparing children for the exams. Ofqual is seriously setting the boundaries for allowed grades at the end of secondary school based on the grades children got at the end of primary school. This begs the question as to the purpose of secondary education.
• The Government is forever, incorrectly, attacking teachers for a culture of low expectations and for using poverty as an excuse - but here is an independent examination Regulator at the behest of the Secretary of State putting a defined cap on achievement.
• This scandal should lead to much deeper thinking about how we judge schools and assess pupils. The very high stakes system of league tables and exams at 16 isn't used in many other high performing education systems. There is an urgent need for an open and honest debate about what exams and education are for.