One consequence of the global Covid-19 pandemic was to cause the cancellation of the Summer 2020 school examinations across the United Kingdom. What happened next – the disruption and loss of public confidence following the decisions to use, and subsequently discard, an algorithm to forecast students’ grades – has been discussed extensively elsewhere, and is not the subject here. But one incident from this fiasco sets the scene for this paper well: in response to a question posed at a hearing of the UK Parliament’s Education Select Committee held on 2 September 2020, Dame Glenys Stacey, the Interim Chief Regulator of Ofqual, the body that regulates school examinations in England, stated that exam grades are ‘reliable to one grade either way’.
That is a startling admission.
The grades resulting from what many refer to as ‘gold standard examinations’ are the outcome of many years of education. To students, grades acknowledge their achievement; to colleges, universities and employers, grades are often taken into account in their admissions or employment processes, if not acting as absolute criteria. In practice, there is a possibly life-changing difference between A level grades in three subjects of AAA as compared to AAB, or between grades 3 and 4 in GCSE English Language or Maths.
But if, as the Interim Chief Regulator stated, grades are ‘reliable to one grade either way’, then might AAB really be A*AA, or perhaps BAA, or even BBC? That 3, a 4? No one knows. Yet it is the triplet AAB, or that single grade 3, on which vital decisions are made.
