High Court rejects bid to overturn GCSE English grades in England

Poll

Do you agree with the High Court's decision not to regrade the GCSE English papers?

The High Court has rejected the attempts by schools, councils and teaching unions to re-grade some of the GCSE English papers from the summer 2012 exams. Students in Wales had their papers for the same exam regraded back in November 2012.

What are your thoughts? Is this the right decision?

2013A legal attempt to overturn controversial GCSE grades has been rejected.

The High Court has not accepted a bid from school leaders, teachers' unions and councils to change grade boundaries in last summer's GCSE English exams.

Head teachers said they were "bitterly disappointed" with the court's ruling that results might have been unfair but they were not unlawful.

Ofqual chief Glenys Stacey said: "It's our job to secure standards."

The ruling from the High Court blocked a bid to change thousands of results from exams taken last summer.

Judges said there had been "widespread and genuine concern", but it blamed the modular structure of the exam for creating the problems.

Lord Justice Elias said it was "the structure of the qualification itself which is the source of such unfairness as has been demonstrated in this case, and not any unlawful action" by the Ofqual exam regulator or exam boards.

The ruling says that changing the summer exam grade boundaries to the lower level used for January exams would have created an "unrealistically high proportion of students obtaining a C grade" - and as such Ofqual was correct to reject this proposal.

The modular structure of the exam, with grades awarded at each stage, was identified as the underlying problem.

Regulators were faced with allowing the "unfairness" of a tougher grading for pupils taking the exams in the summer in order to protect GCSE standards. The alternative would have been to retrospectively lower the results of pupils taking exams in January.

"Once that became clear, Ofqual was engaged in an exercise of damage limitation. Whichever way it chose to resolve the problem, there was going to be an element of unfairness," says the ruling.

But it concludes that Ofqual and the exam boards had not "erred in law".

Ofqual chief Glenys Stacey said the regulator's decisions over exam grades had been "the right thing and the fairest thing, for the right reasons".

She said that if the court had backed the legal challenge it would have meant "many students would have received grades that they did not deserve".
'Disappointed'

Joan McVittie, a north London head teacher who had been part of the bid to overturn results, said: "We are bitterly disappointed. This case was taken on behalf of young people who were affected last summer.

"This has affected their life chances considerably."

A spokeswoman for the AQA exam board said they were "acutely aware of the distress caused to candidates who were disappointed by their GCSE English results last summer.

"Clearly there are lessons to be learned all round from what happened."

The legal challenge had been launched after protests from head teachers that thousands of pupils had received lower grades than expected.

The court heard claims that grade boundaries had been manipulated upwards in an attempt to avoid too many pupils being awarded higher GCSE grades.

Lawyers representing the alliance of pupils, heads and councils argued for the June exams to be regraded in line with exams taken in January when the boundaries were lower.

But Edexcel and AQA said they had acted properly and Ofqual argued it had acted in a "clear, principled and transparent" way.

The challenge centred on more than 10,000 pupils who missed out on a C grade in GCSE English, which is a crucial benchmark used for entry into further education, vocational training and employment.

Up to 50,000 pupils in England, Wales and Northern Ireland could have received higher grades if the judges had upheld the legal challenge.
GCSE changes

The case against the regulator Ofqual and exam boards AQA and Edexcel had been brought by a total of 167 individual pupils, supported by 150 schools and 42 councils, plus six professional bodies, including teachers' unions.

In an acrimonious dispute, which has run since the exam results were issued in August, head teachers repeatedly challenged Ofqual's credibility.

The controversy also saw a growing divide between the education systems in England and Wales - with the Welsh government ordering a regrade.

Rod Bristow, president of Pearson UK, which owns the Edexcel exam board, said there was "much to be learned from the events of this summer", but said he was pleased that the courts had "found that our awarding processes were rigorous and fair".

Education Secretary Michael Gove said: "Labour politicians should apologise to pupils, parents and teachers for their decision to introduce modules into GCSEs. Today's judgement made it clear that the modular structure created the problem with GCSEs."

Shadow Education Secretary Stephen Twigg said: "The government must ensure these problems don't happen again. Now that Michael Gove's English Baccalaureate reforms have fallen apart it is vital that he restores the credibility of exams for the future."

Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-21426396

(edited 11 years ago)

Scroll to see replies

Reply 1

PrinceyJ

So welsh students on AQA and Edexcel (I presume these exist?) got remarks but English students didn't?

Reply 2

amyyalice

I got a very high B in that exam. Could have got an A if the boundaries changed. I'm gutted! :s-smilie:

Reply 3

Elm Tree

Still got an A so everything is hunky-dory

Reply 4

izpenguin

Not fair. Mainly because it's quite clearly wrong that Welsh students sitting the exact same exam got different grade boundaries, because theirs were regraded. That's what bothers me. If people are sitting the same exam, it should be marked in the same way. That's common sense.

(edited 11 years ago)

Reply 5

CRIKEY12

Whilst the explanation seems rational, the execution of the fiasco was life damaging for many. I hope that the exams that were taken again proved to have more realistic results.
It does appear that the original results were tampered with, but the court has accepted the reasons for the tampering. It is a bigger stick with which to beat the teachers and exam boards in favour of a rethink of the GCSEs. Am I quite alone in cynically believing that Gove has got his way. Do you think he is a chess player?

Reply 6

123formyabc

Was this for only english language or just the english lit cos i was 1 off an A in lit. But obviously it doesn't matter now

Reply 7

KarlTheOtaku

"Unfair, but not unlawful", the exact words of the judge today after the decision.
I got a C in the only English GCSE exam I sat in June and everything else I took was either an A*, A or B, I ended up with a B at the end but for me and the areas I've always always struggle right through school with, I'm happy with my grade. Obviously I feel sympathy for the others who've been reliant on this grade and to change the grade boundaries right at the last minute is just one huge kick in the balls to all teachers and pupils on the benchmark to improve progress to get a sufficient enough grade for Further Education.

Ofqual can say what they want on the issue, but the issue with Ofqual is that they're essentially a group of failed teachers who can't be arsed to learn and sadly have the power to essentially bully high quality teachers into methods they may not really want, they can say what they want to "improve standards", but they shouldn't just make this decision so rapidly. Yes, "grade inflation" is obviously visible in GCSEs in comparison to 10 years ago but solving it in the way that Ofqual, AQA and Edexcel is totally appalling. Qualifications of this importance must undergo changes over time, they can't just be done this quickly as you get some people who've done "half" of a simple course and "half" a difficult course.

Reply 8

Jim-Jam

Just makes no sense, I feel bad for the people involved.

"Through no fault of your own you're now a grade down just because you did an exam at a different time to others!" Says the man in a suit who hasn't stepped foot in a school in 25+ years.

Know nothing. Same with the GCSE things, absolutely nothing.

Reply 9

L'Evil Fish

Can I just point out that as a Welsh personal my paper was supposedly regraded. The grade boundaries for a C were a lot lower but the A* boundary went up so it was harder for me to get the A* :s-smilie:

So pros and cons.

Either way, it's unfair.

Sad.

Well it's no surprise to see that on a student forum where people have a vested interest, that the majority do not agree with the decision not to regrade.

Personally i have the benefit of hindsight in that i cruised through and ended up B/C years ago and so that hindsight teaches me that i don't really have any sympathy for you all. The fact of the matter is that whilst there will be some who should have struggled across the line, for the vast majority they should have pushed themselves for an A*, not simply to pass with a C.

If anything this is a damming enlightenment of the attitudes of somewhat lazy pupils and teachers and i fully support Mr Gove.

Reply 12

CRIKEY12

Original post by Rakas21

If anything this is a damming enlightenment of the attitudes of somewhat lazy pupils and teachers and i fully support Mr Gove.

I feel you may soon be in a diminishing minority of folks.
His leadership bid is due for a scuppering.
Have you seen what they are saying about the bully boys he has emploed in his dept?

Reply 13

GekoFan

I'm one of them unlucky ones and got a D in that exam (though maybe I did deserve that grade really haha), despite getting high grades in the practice papers we did.

Just going to pray that I got at least a C in the resit -_-

Reply 14

Rakas21

Original post by CRIKEY12

I feel you may soon be in a diminishing minority of folks.
His leadership bid is due for a scuppering.
Have you seen what they are saying about the bully boys he has emploed in his dept?

I don't support his leadership bid (i support Hague) but i do think that many of his educational reforms are very good and am disappointed he gave in.

All governments do that, if it were upto the teachers and health unions then no reform would ever take place.

Reply 15

Rakas21

Original post by GekoFan

And do you feel that you pushed yourself as hard as you could, harder than ever before to get that grade?

I coasted myself but in hindsight i should have pushed myself.

Reply 16

ShutUpLegs

I got a D in this exam which brought me down to a B, looks like I'll just have to resit.

Reply 17

Arbolus

Original post by Jim-Jam

People who took their GCSE's ten years ago aren't disadvantaged by the fact that their average results are half a grade lower than the average results now, because employers are aware that a good GCSE from then is worth much more than a good GCSE from now. Give it another couple of years for the employers to get used to the new regime and today's students won't be disadvantaged either. All it will do is make it easier to tell the difference between a good pass and a bad one.

However, since the Welsh papers were regraded, it seems only fair that the English ones should be too. It's not right that two students sitting effectively the same exam at the same time and getting the same raw mark should be given different grades because Welsh and English courts and exam boards can't agree on a common standard. I'd prefer it if none of the papers were regraded, but since it's too late for that then the next best option is that they all should be.

Reply 18

Pleonasm

I hope they are going to make the necessary adjustments/ preparations to make sure this doesn't happen again.

Reply 19

letsbehonest

I got 120/120ums in that exam. I got a C the first time I sat it in year 10.
Students should have tried harder and prepared better. Too late now so they should resit

If they narrowly missed a C then surely it isn't a problem resitting?