Our response to the updated Results Day fiasco
The Minister must now follow suit with the other devolved administrations in revisiting (and reversing) the disastrous strategy employed for assessing A-Level results.
We welcome the decision that was released this morning stating that GCSE students will receive their school predicted grades. This applies if the student was undertaking assessment with the NI exam board, CCEA, which accounted for around 97% of all GCSE examinations in Northern Ireland.
It is right to trust our teachers instead of relying on standardisation and algorithms. Our young people are worthy of more than that.
Today's GCSE U-turn was justified by comments from the Minister stating that: "GCSE’s do not have prior performance data, while A-levels do". In the absence of sufficient details on the weighting used by the model, and with worrying statistics emerging regarding the students that have been disadvantaged most, this rationale is untenable as a justification for how this year's A-level results have been graded.
Last Thursday, 58% of teacher grades were awarded to students at A-level. According to CCEA, in 37% of cases teachers were over optimistic in their prediction, affecting about 11,000 grades.
The announcement today reflects the fact that our teachers are best placed to award grades that are fair, tangible and deserving. The Minister should rethink this position on A-level results - and urgently.