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GCSE and A-level students in England will be allowed to use mock exam grades to apply for jobs and university, the government is set to announce.
In an eleventh-hour U-turn, Education Secretary Gavin Williamson is set to tell students they can use mock results if they are unhappy with the calculated grades they are awarded on Thursday.
The move comes after Scotland scrapped its moderated grades system today, announcing it would reverse the downgrading of more than 124,000 results. Scotland’s Education Secretary John Swinney revealed that downgraded results would revert to the grades estimated by pupils’ teachers following protests.
Unions called on the British government to follow suit, with Labour warning that Boris Johnson risked ‘robbing a generation of young people of their future’.
English students will now have the option to choose between moderated results and grades achieved in mocks that were held before schools were forced to close amid the pandemic.
All grades will carry the same value with universities, colleges and employers, the Department for Education (DfE) is expected to say.
This year’s summer exams were cancelled during lockdown, with teachers instructed to submit grades they thought each student would have achieved had they sat the papers.
Exam boards have moderated grades for students in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland to ensure this year’s results are not significantly higher than previous years.
But many raised concerns that the grades would not be representative of what students could have achieved, saying exam boards should trust teachers to make the call.
GCSE and A-level students will still be allowed to sit exams in autumn if they are unhappy with the grades secured in mock exams, or if they are dissatisfied with those awarded this week.
Williamson is also due to announce an additional £30 million in funding to help schools and colleges carry out the autumn exams for students wishing to sit them.
But the appeals process is expected to remain the same, with English students dependent on schools and colleges to appeal against results on their behalf.
Mr Williamson said: ‘Every young person waiting for their results wants to know they have been treated fairly.
‘By ensuring students have the safety net of their mock results, as well as the chance of sitting autumn exams, we are creating a triple lock process to ensure they can have the confidence to take the next step forward in work or education.’
Concerns were raised by Labour that A-level and GCSE results could be downgraded for thousands of pupils in England because of the replacement grading system introduced.
Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer said: ‘The SNP have been forced into a humiliating U-turn after a shambolic few days. With 24 hours before results are released, I would urge the Prime Minister to change course, or he risks robbing a generation of their future.’
But the Association of School and College Leaders accused the government of a ‘panicked and chaotic response’ and said the current moderated system was needed for fairness.
General Secretary Geoff Barton said: ‘The idea of introducing at the eleventh hour a system in which mock exam results trump calculated grades beggars belief.
‘The government doesn’t appear to understand how mock exams work. They aren’t a set of exams which all conform to the same standards.’
He added: ‘Schools and colleges have spent months diligently following detailed guidance to produce centre-assessed grades only to find they might as well not have bothered.’
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