Have your say: What’s happening with the grading system for Btec students?

The article fails to mention units that were supposed to be assessed by an external exam. Unlike coursework units, in which teachers submitted a grade and this grade was reviewed by Pearson, exam units were calculated entirely by Pearson, who seem to have been extremely quiet about this. I saw on their website that they were using coursework grades for this year and last year to calculate this in addition to previous exam performance. Despite receiving distinctions for all my coursework units this year, last year getting 2 distinctions, a merit and a pass for my coursework units and getting a distinction and 2 merits for my previous exams, I only received a near pass for my exam this year which caused my grade to drop from D*DD to DDD. Whilst DDD is still a good grade, I am still unhappy that I didn't even receive a proper passing grade for that exam, and the grade does still hurt me as I list each individual grade on my CV.

I also saw a similar story on the news, a student from Devon got all distinctions in her coursework but Pearson decided to give her a fail for her exam and she failed the qualification as a result. https://www.theguardian.com/educatio...gorithm-fiasco

A friend of mine doing the same course got lower grades than me pretty much all around but comes from a wealthier background. Pearson gave him a pass on that exam instead of near pass. Discrimination at it's finest imo.