Nick Gibb insists standardization model was fair but not implemented correctly

Minister of State for School Standards, Nick Gibb, has admitted that he had been warned that the algorithm used to determine GCSE grades could disproportionately affect poorer student.

Mr Gibb, while defending the standardization system persisted in his opinion that the system was fair but had been incorrectly utilized, apologized to students and parents for the resultant chaotic state of affairs. He was unable to give a definite date when Btec results, which have been delayed, would be released stating they would “hopefully” come out next week.

The General Certificate of Secondary Education (GCSE) is a set of exams taken in England, Wales, Northern Ireland and other British territories. They are usually taken by students aged 15–16, after two years of study.

Northern Ireland to let teachers decide GCSE grades after A-level disaster

Northern Irish GCSE students will be given grades decided by their teachers after an outcry over the use of an algorithm to award marks for A-level.

A Levels are a college or sixth form leaving qualification offered in England, Wales, and Northern Ireland. These are not compulsory, unlike GCSEs.

BTECs at levels 1 and 2 are equivalent to GCSEs, level 3 to A-Levels, and levels 4 -7 hold the same status of achievement as a degree. BTECs are vocational qualifications, rather than traditional academic courses.

Mr Gibb admitted that reports that ministers were warned weeks ago of flaws in the exams algorithm that left thousands of A-level students devastated and university admissions in disarray were true.  

Sir Jon Coles, a former director general at the Department for Education (DfE), wrote to the education secretary, Gavin Williamson, early last month to express concerns about the algorithm used by the exams regulator Ofqual, The Times has revealed.

Speaking to BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, Gibb said: “He [Coles] spoke to me about it and he was concerned about the model and he was concerned that it would disadvantage particularly children from poorer backgrounds. And so I called a meeting therefore with the independent regulator, with Ofqual, to discuss in detail those very concerns.”

Gibb said it “certainly was foreseen” that private school pupils could benefit from the use of the algorithm, because it was already clear that small cohorts had to rely more on the teacher-assessed grade than on the standardisation process, but he said that applied to the state sector as much as to the independent sector.

“What was always at the forefront of my mind was that no young person from a disadvantaged background would see their grades standardised to a greater extent than other young people,” he said.

“There was about a 2% difference, that’s broadly what we saw in the national results last week, in contrast to what we saw in Scotland where there was a big gap between disadvantaged pupils. And that’s because in this country we had more data about the prior attainment of young people that was built into the model.

“So the model itself was fair, it was very popular, it was widely consulted upon. The problem arose in the way in which the three phases of the application of that model – the historic data of the school, the prior attainment of the cohort of pupils at the school, and then the national standard correction – it’s that element of the application of the model that I think there is a concern.”

The minister went on: “The application of the model is a regulatory approach and it’s the development of that that emerged on the Thursday when the algorithm was published. And at that stage it became clear that there were some results that were being published on Thursday and Friday that were just not right and they were not what the model had intended.

“It was not intended that a young person who had worked diligently for two years on their A-levels and was expecting an A and two Bs or three As, and turned up at school to collect their grades and they were three Ds.”

Labour leader says young people, parents, feel let down and betrayed by system

Sir Keir Starmer, leader of the opposition labour party, has called on Whitehall to scrap the “fatally flawed” A-Level grading system, demanding ministers revert to teacher assessed grades for students who were downgraded.

The opposition Labour Party, in a bid for greater transparency, has called on the DfE to publish all correspondence to and from Williamson in which concerns about the algorithm were discussed.

Kate Green, the shadow education secretary, said Williamson had repeatedly been warned that the grading system had problems, yet each time, he did absolutely nothing.

“This endless pattern of incompetence is no way to run a country. His failure to listen to warnings and to act on them risked thousands of young people being robbed of their futures,” she said.

“It is time for full transparency. The Department for Education must now publish all correspondence to and from the secretary of state in which concerns about this algorithm were discussed, as a matter of urgency. Young people deserve to know how they came to be let down so badly.”

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