As concerns over exam results emerged John acted immediately contacting the Department of Education. Early concern raised suggested that UCAS and the Clearing System were not allowing sufficient time for appeals. As reported yesterday John immediately contacted the Department of Education to call for an immediate halt to UCAS Clearing to give time for appeals before it was too late.
With the potential for concerns, the day before results were publised The Secretary of State introduced a ‘triple lock’ which means that students who are unhappy with their grades have three options. They can:
- Accept their calculated grade
- Appeal to receive a valid result based on mocks,
- Sit autumn exams.
Schools and colleges can also appeal on behalf of their students.
Ofqual has produced Guidance on this situation Your results. What next? This includes information for students who are not happy with their results. There is also a telephone number to phone number for parents and students to talk to a professionally qualified careers adviser should they need to do so. The number is 0800 100 900.
John said: "I completely understand the feelings and the stress that this situation is causing for students and parents alike. Those who are not happy with the outcome will want to know what to do next and I hope that the information that has been published will be helpful. It is essential in this type of situation that there is a robust appeals process in place. I am grateful that a triple lock has been put in place and I remain strongly of the view that Universities need to play their part in this too. Today, I have contacted the Department of Education again to raise concerns about the results on behalf of constituents and now wait to see how the situation progresses."
Ofqual has set out the detail of how results were worked out. Essentially schools and colleges have provided a ‘centre assessment grade’ for each subject – the grade students would be most likely to have achieved had exams gone ahead. Schools and colleges also placed the students in rank order within each grade in each subject and submitted this data to the exam boards. Ofqual has also tried to ensure that these grades are consistent across different schools and colleges and that we do not undermine the quality of the results.
John added: "It is easy to try to second guess what the Secretary of State should have done but he took the understandable view that in the light of the public health emergency, all GCSE, AS and A level exams should be cancelled. No alternative system was going to be a perfect substitute for real exams. We have relied on Ofqual, the independent qualifications regulator, to develop a system for calculating a grade for each student for each subject, which reflects their performance as fairly as possible."
