Ministers are under pressure over the botched handling of English A-level results after Scotland announced a review of grades and major research showed high-achieving pupils from poorer backgrounds are likely to be hardest hit.
The universities minister is asking vice-chancellors to be lenient with their offers and keep places open for pupils pursuing appeals, amid fears that results will not truly reflect pupils’ abilities.
In England about 250,000 pupils are due to receive their A-level results on Thursday following the cancellation of exams due to coronavirus. Results were worked out using a school’s recent exam history and each pupil’s exam results, as well as grades submitted by teachers.
Schools in England are braced for turmoil on Thursday when about 250,000 pupils are due to receive their A-level results following the cancellation of exams due to the coronavirus pandemic. Grades will be issued according to an algorithm that relies on a school’s recent exam history and each pupil’s past exam results, as well as grades submitted by teachers.
A former head of Ofsted, the schools watchdog, said the system was “a mess” and would lead to “huge injustices”.
The Westminster government has been monitoring events in Scotland, where the first minister, Nicola Sturgeon apologised on Monday and promised a review after the exams authority rejected 124,000 grade recommendations from teachers – a quarter of the total – with students from poorer backgrounds losing out by a greater margin.
Education will be a double headache for Boris Johnson today according to a splash by the Times, this morning that says that despite assurances from ministers that a major ongoing Public Health England study suggests little risk of coronavirus spread in schools, the research in fact shows older children may indeed transmit the virus similarly to adults.
Researchers working on the study are “unhappy with the way ministers have used the findings, which have not been fully analysed,” Becky McCall, Chris Smyth and Tom Whipple report for the Times. The study is said to have divided pupils into under 10s and over 10s. Researchers want to investigate early signs of differences between the groups, once schools are fully open again.
The Telegraph reports that England’s Chief Medical Officer, Chris Whitty has been asked to carry out “a rapid evaluation of the research on schools in order to provide parents with more reassurance before the new term starts next month.”
They’re highlighting a diametrically different study to the one in the Times. This study, to be published later this week, will show that despite 60 clusters and outbreaks in schools and nurseries during June and July, not a single child has been hospitalised.
Preliminary results from a larger study by Public Health England (PHE) next week are expected to confirm that there is little evidence that the virus is transmitted in schools .