Post-16 results: Let's forget the scaremongering and celebrate the achievements of students and staff

Over the weekend I felt like I was in somewhat of a twilight zone. In anticipation of this week’s A level and equivalent results, several papers ran stories on what we can expect. Many of these suggested that results are likely to be ‘unexpectedly’ lower than in 2021, and that therefore, more students might miss out on their conditional university offers.

This is just nonsense. If anything, this year’s results will be the most expected and most predictable in a long time, at least at a national level. Since the policy decision was made back in the autumn, we have known what the overall grading profile will look like: a (not exact) midpoint between 2019 and 2021. Regardless of your view on whether that’s fair or not, we can’t accuse the DfE or Ofqual of not trailing this for a while. This week’s results will not be ‘unexpected’ as suggested by some headlines.