education

Vegetarian GCSE student gets lowest pass grade after criticising halal butchers

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The teenager was shocked to find she had barely passed the exam (Picture: Getty)

A vegetarian teenager accused of being Islamophobic after she criticised halal butchers in a GCSE religious studies exam has been given the lowest pass grade possible.

Abigail Ward, 16, was originally disqualified from her Religious Studies and Philosophy exam after she said halal meat was ‘absolutely disgusting’.

However her school, the Gildredge House school in Eastbourne, East Sussex, appealed the decision and said she was simply expressing her firmly held vegetarian beliefs.

Exam board OCR overturned the disqualification made on the grounds of ‘obscene racial comments being made throughout an exam paper’ and accepted that it was inaccurate to disqualify her.

But when she opened her results on Thursday along with thousands of other GCSE students, Abigail was dismayed to find he was given a 1, one grade above a fail.

Exam board OCR has stood by its marking of Abigail’s paper (Picture: Getty)

Her mum Layla, 36, said this low pass does not match the rest of Abigail’s grades where she achieved two 6s, three 4s and one 3.

Following the overhaul of the GCSE marking system in 2017 a 1 grade is equivalent to a former G grade, with 6s approximately matching a B, 4s equal to Cs and 3 similar to former D grades.

Layla said she has been encouraged to seek legal advice and described her daughter as a model student.

She said: ‘The exam has a totally different grade to all her other results, so even though they took back the disqualification I don’t think they’ve been very fair.

‘I don’t know why they’ve marked her down like this. Maybe their personal beliefs came into it. Maybe not I don’t know.

‘Abby is not someone who will follow the crowd, if she believes in something then she will voice her opinion.’

The mum added that Abigail has been a strict vegetarian since she was in primary school, even refusing to eat sweets with gelatin in.

Her school originally appealed Abigail’s disqualification. (Picture: Google Maps)

The exam board has reviewed Abigail’s paper and has maintained the grade was fair.

An OCR spokesperson said: ‘Students’ exam results are confidential, however we can confirm that we have provided a copy of the student’s exam script to the school.

‘We have also had a senior examiner look at this script again. We’re confident the result is accurate and the issue about comments had no impact on the marking.

‘If any student is not happy about their exam results, there are a range of services we offer they can use to query the result.’

The low grade on the paper has not affected Abigail’s plans, and she will now begin her A-Levels in September.



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