Mind The Gap

How are we enjoying the summer holidays?  As someone who has worked in education for the last twelve years, I obviously live my life by the school calendar.  But I imagine there are many non teachers out there who, despite having not attended school for decades, still feel as though August equals the summer holiday.  There is a greater significance to August though and two words that have become synonymous with the last of the summer months for teachers like me - exam results.  Contrary to the popular belief that all teachers have the magic ability to entirely switch off from school the minute the final bell of the year sounds, doing so is actually harder than you might think especially when results day is approaching.

Teachers across the country were criticised during school closures over lockdown, being labelled as work shy and lazy merely for raising concerns over the possible dangers that were posed from the reopening of schools, at a time I might add, when the government was scaremongering society from every angle.  Was it any surprise that some teachers were reluctant to put themselves and their students in danger whilst we were being encouraged to question the safety of everything from tube travel to standing anywhere near anyone who we didn’t live with as well as being limited to one hour of time outside our home per day.  The reality of lockdown as anyone here who is either a teacher or living with one will know, is that our time working from home was just as busy as our time in school, if not more so.  And even for schools who weren’t able to have as much Zoom contact with students due to computer access and size, there was still a lot to be done.  And believe me, I can tell you first hand from my own experience and from those of my colleagues, that whilst no one was complaining about not having to run the gauntlet of the packed London Underground during rush hour, we all missed school and the students, A LOT.  Teaching over Zoom was nobody’s first choice and whilst everyone recognised that it was the right thing to do at the time, it is grossly misleading to suggest that school staff everywhere were rubbing their hands with glee at the “freedom” that lockdown teaching provided.   There was a unanimous feeling of concern from educators over the important classroom time that young people were missing and were never going to get back.  And let’s not forget the thousands of teachers who were still travelling into work everyday to support the children of key workers and vulnerable students, who needed the security and routine of school more than ever amid the pandemic.  

As adults and educators we are better equipped to deal with the extreme disruption caused by this year’s school closures, but the most important people to consider in this uniquely challenging time, are the young people.  Across the UK, the majority of students have just experienced the most disjointed, confusing and unknown year in all of their lives, if not in the history of education.  For school leavers in Year 13, the anxiety is real.  Can you imagine being in the year group that leaves school just as the world is imploding?  Recession has officially been announced and although unemployment figures are not the worst they have been, the Furlough scheme ends in two months which will undoubtedly present a far grimmer picture statistically.  There are currently 300,000 more people than usual classed as “inactive” when it comes to employment.  Loosely translated, these are the people who were either between jobs or actively seeking employment as lockdown hit and now cannot apply for new jobs due to restrictions, redundancies and employment freezes.  It is not a promising picture.  Can you imagine being a young person who needs to find work with the added disadvantage of having no experience?

For those with the security of a university place to take up in September, they are facing the very real possibility that they might not even see a campus or another student in the flesh for many more months as many universities have started to announce that distance learning will continue into next year.  Aside from that, let’s not forget that despite the reassurance that we have been given that this year group will not be treated any differently to other graduating cohorts in the future, no matter what we hope, there is always the risk that they will always be tainted with the “corona year” label.  Imagine in three years time, two similarly aged peers are going for the same job - both strong candidates with the same grades, but one of those grades came from the corona cohort.  Whilst I hope with all my heart that employers will adhere to guidance and not be influenced by this, it saddens me to say that, unfortunately, I am sceptical.

If there was ever a time to give young people a break, it is now.

So after Thursday’s announcement about the substantial reduction of A Level grades, it is understandable that teachers, students and parents  everywhere are up in arms.  It feels like an even bigger up yours to teachers and our professional judgment than the lockdown criticism we received as we saw a staggering 39% of our estimated grades pulled down.  Whilst I’m sure it is easy to assume that the process of estimating marks was a simple one, it was actually one of the most challenging parts of this year.  I have had many comments from family and friends along the lines of, “surely you can just mark them up and improve your school’s results”, “that’s good news for the kids who didn’t work very hard” or  “I bet that’s saved you a lot of time”, all of which are actually exceptionally insulting presumptions  which belittle the integrity of the profession.  As a teacher in a sixth form, I can say that the process of estimating grades was not an easy one.  It was time consuming as we analysed work, mock exams, patterns of achievement across the year, looked at previous attainment of young people working at similar standards, we moderated in our department and then deliberated across the college, essentially using our professional judgement to the best of our ability.  And it was worth it - because when we finally entered our estimations, we felt confident that the grades that we had submitted were as fair and accurate as possible in line with what we felt the young people would have achieved were they to have taken the exam.  So to hear the news of the way the results have been dealt with was heartbreaking to say the least.

But not as heartbreaking as the patterns that quickly and clearly began to emerge, and that was about the groups who were most affected by the grade changes.  The computer generated algorithm has impacted pupils from disadvantaged backgrounds the worst, while those from private schools have benefited the most.  The failing system continues.

So let’s talk about some cold, hard facts.

Data released by Ofqual revealed significant differences between school types when it came to the grades that were awarded.  Unsurprisingly, independent schools were impacted in the most forgiving way.  The proportion of A* and As awarded to private schools rose by 4.7 percentage points, that’s more than double awarded to state comprehensive schools.   State sixth form colleges came out the  worst with a rise of just 0.6 percentage points, compared with the increase of 2.3 points in England as a whole.

In terms of overall grades, 49% of entries by students at independent schools received an A grade or higher, while just 22% were awarded to students at comprehensive schools.   85% of teenagers from the most disadvantaged socioeconomic groups were predicted to get a C or above by their teachers - but the moderation process brought this down by over 10% resulting in only 74.6% of pupils ending up with a C or above.  This is devastating news and despite claims otherwise, it is difficult to deny that time and time again the government is failing when it comes to narrowing the attainment gap, instead hindering the opportunities for disadvantaged young people and as a result making inequality more rampant.   

Since Thursday there has been mounting pressure for Education Secretary Gavin Williamson to resign due to the chaos caused by the mishandling of this situation in addition to the criticism he faced due to poor organisation regarding IT provision and vitally important access to free school meal vouchers for students during lockdown.    To try and counteract the shambles of the past few days, there has been a half hearted attempt to mend the damage done to students by announcing that they may now use their mock data to replace their grade if they are unhappy, provided that the mock was completed in exam conditions and can be “validated” by teachers.  Interesting that now we can be trusted to validate what will be many students' final grade.  I wonder why the same trust and respect wasn’t offered to our initial grading?  It would have saved a lot of time, money and heartache if our professional judgement had been deemed valuable enough originally.   Quite frankly this decision shows a complete lack of awareness of school systems in the UK on Williamson’s part.  Every school handles mock exams differently - some do them very early in the year and some much later, each is their own prerogative and always a purposeful decision but as you would expect, each choice brings about different types of results.  It is also common that on average students improve by at least a grade from mock to real exam.  Precisely why we initially assumed that we were given the opportunity to form estimations using mock data alongside other formative and summative assessment to offer a more complete and accurate picture.   Finally, students have also been given the opportunity (if we can call it that) to sit an optional exam in Autumn.  I’m not quite sure where the government thinks the provision for supporting and preparing the students who want to take these exams will come from in a time when schools will already be stretched to the maximum?  Once these steps have been taken, the highest grade to be achieved out of the computer generated moderated version of teacher estimations, the “validated” mock result or the autumn exam mark can be chosen.  Teacher’s original estimated grades won’t be considered as according to Williamson this would raise the overall results and therefore “devalue” them.  Frustrated is an understatement if ever there was one.  

The Social Mobility Commission have published a statement encouraging an alternative, urging the government to offer schools the opportunity for whole school appeals rather than exceptional case appeals only.  Because appealing exam results on an individual basis is expensive - over £100 for an “exceptional case”, which would include a school claiming that a result should have been marked higher than a computer generated moderator had calculated...so once again, those most in need will be excluded due to financial limitations.  The commission has also stressed the importance of teachers, parents, employers and anyone involved in the life of a young person dealing with this fallout to prioritise care advice and support and I couldn’t agree more.   Young people are already feeling forgotten and abandoned and if we are not careful we are going to be dealing with a higher than ever drop out rate caused by a countrywide cohort of disillusioned young people.  We cannot let that happen.  These are the futures of a generation of young people that we are talking about.  University places at risk, employment opportunities decreased and morale in a vulnerable state. We need to treat it as the serious situation that it is.

Keep an eye on my website for details of some free online tuition sessions that I will be running from September as well as some English resources that I will be creating to assist students who are opting to take the Autumn exams.  If you know of anyone who is in need of support or advice please tell them to get in touch.