Boards may face suit over GCSE grades

The Education Secretary Michael Gove was facing mounting anger over the decision by exam boards to raise grade boundaries in the English GCSE exam at the last minute.Around 4,000 candidates expecting a C grade pass in English were downgraded to a D – delivering a potentially fatal blow to their chances of taking up sixth-form or college places to study A-levels.Exam boards now face legal action with claims the decision has equality implications – as pupils with English as a second language and disadvantaged teenagers in general were most likely to be affected. They are also bracing themselves for a record number of appeals over grades from disgruntled pupils and their schools.Teachers are planning a protest demonstration outside the Department for Education’s offices on Tuesday over the decision – taken after boards saw there would be an unexpected rise in the top grade pass rate.Chris Edwards, assistant head teacher of Bishop David Brown school in Surrey, said in an open letter to Gove his pupils “can’t understand why someone would want to play around with their futures in such a cruel way”. “You have not simply moved the goalposts,” he added. “You have demolished them, sold off the playing fields and left the dreams of these youngsters in tatters.”Teachers argue their pupils were discriminated against because, if they had taken their exam in the winter sitting, the pass mark for the C grade would have been lower.In Edwards’ school, the changes dealt a particularly harsh blow to a group of Nepalese children who it had been predicted would get a C grade.“I spent the vast majority of the morning [Thursday] consoling students who worked more than hard enough to earn a C grade in English, had been predicted a C grade in English and effectively earned a C grade in English but had been credited with a D grade, thus scuppering their chances of going to a college which had conditionally accepted them based on their predicted grades,” he said. “These are students who are learning English as a second, sometimes third, language.”Head teachers are examining whether schools could have a case for legal action against the exam boards on discrimination grounds.A trust which runs 29 of the Government’s academies, the Academies Enterprise Trust, is urging schools to send details about the background of pupils who missed out with a view to backing a case for legal action. Leeds and Bradford councils are considering a similar move.Pressure is mounting for an investigation into what happened to grade boundaries. The Welsh Assembly has already decided to mount one with its Education Minister Leighton Andrews accusing Gove of pressurising exam boards to mark more harshly.One of his senior advisers, David Reynolds, a professor at Southampton University, said: “It’s difficult to avoid the assumption that there’s an orchestrated campaign going on somewhere [to reduce pass rates].” Both A-levels and GCSEs saw a drop in top grade passes this year.Stephen Twigg, Labour’s education spokesman, said he had written to Graham Stuart, chairman of the Commons Education Select Committee, to ask it to hold an inquiry into the issue when Parliament resumes next month. “There needs to be an independent cross-party inquiry in order to restore confidence in the system,” he said.Stuart said his members were likely to discuss the issue at their first meeting after the recess.The National Association of Head Teachers has urged Gove and Glenys Stacey, head of Ofqual, the exams regulator, to set up an urgent independent review into what happened.“It is simply not fair to damage the opportunities of young people in this way, discriminating against them purely because they sat their exam in June rather than January,” said Russell Hobby, its general secretary.Thursday’s GCSE results saw a drop of 0.4 percentage points in the proportion of pupils achieving five A* to C grade passes to 69. 4% for the first time in the exam’s 24-year history. Exam boards said a main reason was a tougher science exam – which saw a 2.2% fall in the percentage awarded A* to C grades. In English, the drop was just 1.5% .The decision to change the grade boundaries for some units came when exam boards saw evidence of unexpectedly high marks in the summer exams. They had already been told by Ofqual that pass marks and grades should be roughly in line with last year’s. Gove had also called for an end to grade inflation and “dumbing down” of the exams. However, on BBC News he denied that there had been any pressure on the exam boards to change the grades.Growing numbers of independent school pupils are topping up their A-levels in an effort to secure university places, it can be revealed today.Figures supplied by the Independent Schools Council show a 25% increase in the number of pupils studying for an essay-style project on top of their A-levels. Under the Extended Project Qualification, students study a project in-depth alongside their A-levels to impress university admissions tutors. Figures show 2,107 pupils in 210 schools took the qualification – widely recognised by universities – compared with 1,573 at 159 last year.Vincent Darby, headteacher of Wolverhampton Grammar School, said: “The students really get their teeth into the research.“It prepares them better for university and impresses tutors.”In addition, more private schools are opting to put their pupils in for rival qualifications to A-levels – such as the International Baccalaureate.