I very much welcome todays announcement that the Government are abandoning the Office of Qualifications and Examinations Regulation (Ofqual) statistical model that has left thousands of students with exam results below their predicted grades.
Since Thursday, I have received dozens of letters from concerned students and parents who are quite rightly angry with the manner in which the grading system had been adopted and implemented. After spending time talking to many parents and students over the last four days, I too was disappointed by the announcement of the results last Thursday, and the steer number of students from across the constituency whose grades were downgraded from their estimates predicated by their teachers. In some cases, grades were downgraded by two or more, which is just completely wrong.
I know just how hard students have worked over the past two years in the run-up to their final A-Level exams and I totally appreciate just how difficult the last few days have been.
Since Thursday and over the weekend, I have been in regular contact with the Rt Hon Nick Gibb MP, Minister of State for School Standards, lobbying for changes to be made to the results process. I have also been in contact with Secondary School Headteachers in the constituency to hear about their experience of the A Level system and the results. I have spent the last four days feeding in the concerns raised by students, parents and the schools to the Ministerial team and I have been requesting that the system was changed with urgency.
I am therefore pleased that the Government and Ofqual have decided to allow A-Level and GCSE students to be given the grades which were predicted by their teachers. I believe this to be a much fairer approach.
I do appreciate the timing of this announcement will be frustrating as it has been four days since the results were published but I do hope that many will be pleased with the outcome. I do have concerns that this news may have come too late for some students who may have already lost out on places at their preferred university, and I therefore call on all universities to be as flexible and understanding as possible.
If anyone still does have concerns, please do contact my office on [email protected] and I will be happy to help.
