Sixth Form head concerned about students being disadvantaged by lack of pandemic grade leniency

Sunderland Echo

Whitburn C of E Academy head of Sixth Form, Lee Craggs, explains his concerns how students across the country may be disadvantaged as exam boards instructed to return A Level grades to pre pandemic levels.

Transcript

00:00 Okay then Lee, just some headline figures from this year's results and how you

00:04 feel about it? Okay so the results this year broadly in line with the 2019

00:08 figures. We've got some fantastic successes particularly with our students

00:13 who've had additional needs. This is a cohort who've had unprecedented

00:17 disruption, losing teaching time during their year 10 and year 11, not actually

00:22 sitting their GCSE exams, so to perform as well as they have is an incredible

00:27 testament to their hard work and their dedication. They've done incredibly well

00:30 and we're very proud of them all. Now the exam boards were instructed to bring

00:34 attainment levels in line with pre-pandemic levels and you said that's

00:39 roughly what you've experienced this year but how do you feel about that

00:42 instruction or exam boards? I think in many ways it is harsh that there are

00:45 year group who've had as I said this disruption to their GCSE studies, studying

00:50 from home during year 10 and year 11, not sitting external exams in the hall

00:54 during their GCSE years. So to have to do that for the first time this year with

00:59 very little leniency, there's a worry about how employers will view that and

01:04 whether in future when these students go to apply for jobs, whether

01:07 employers will understand that they had that disruption and their grades

01:13 don't reflect that leniency that previous years had. Yeah because obviously

01:17 whether it's universities, some people will take a gap year, some people may go to

01:20 university later, you know people probably you know they're not too

01:23 dissimilar in age, you're going to be competing possibly the same professions,

01:25 do you think that does put this year group at a disadvantage not just for

01:29 your school but you know for schools across the country? That is the worry,

01:32 that is the worry that that employees may not quite understand the context

01:36 behind their grades but they have performed very well, they have got on the

01:40 whole the grades they wanted to, we have 90% progressing to the course they

01:46 wanted to go to, so destinations wise that they have done very well, we are very proud of them all.

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