John Dickens | Schools Week

Languages and creative subjects see highest increases in top A-level grades

Creative subjects and other modern languages have seen the highest increases in top grades at A-level. Maths and sociology have seen the lowest increases, but still saw the proportion of A and A* grades increase by almost 10 percentage points between 2019 and 2020. Other modern languages (meaning those other than Spanish, German and French) […]

GCSE results 2020: 8 interesting things we learned

After the government’s U-turn this week to award centre-assessed grades – the statistics released today are must less detailed than what we’d normally get. However, there’s still lots to pick through, so here’s some of the key findings. (Note: all the findings below are based on figures for 16-year-olds in England only). 1. Grade […]

Pearson announces eleventh-hour grading U-turn on BTECs – telling schools NOT to issue results tomorrow

Schools have been told not to issue BTEC results tomorrow after an eleventh hour grading U-turn from Pearson. The company, which is the custodian of BTECs, told schools at 4.30pm today the qualifications will be regraded to “apply consistency across teacher assessed internal grades” following the U-turn for GCSEs and A-levels. While CAGs for internal […]

Results 2020: Students won’t find out their algorithm grades

Ofqual will not tell pupils the calculated grade they were set to get before the government’s U-turn. The regulator told Schools Week this is because the calculated grades are now “no longer relevant”. “To avoid confusion and to remove any further distress for students, we are not publishing the national calculated grades,” a spokesperson added. […]

Another exams U-turn: DfE now says it has ‘full confidence’ in Ofqual after Williamson refusal

The Department for Education has made another exams U-turn by saying it now has “full confidence” in the regulator – just a day after education secretary Gavin Williamson refused to do so. Williamson has been widely reported as attempting to lay the blame for this year’s results fiasco with Ofqual. He was reported as refusing […]

DfE assumed schools had 282 devices each before deciding free laptop allocations

The government assumed schools had as many as 282 laptops each in its calculation to decide how many additional free devices they would receive for disadvantaged pupils. The disclosure may go some way to explaining reports yesterday that just 27 academy trusts received just one laptop under the £85 million government scheme to ensure poorer […]

The DfE has published its first board minutes in over 2 years – here’s what we learnt

The Department for Education has published its first set of board minutes since February 2018 – more than two years ago. It follows freedom of information requests from Schools Week asking for the information. The DfE first told Schools Week it could not release the board minutes because it planned to published them. However when […]

This is what we can expect GCSE results to look like after CAGs came out on top

So, the game of rock-paper-scissors with kids’ exam results has been settled. If, at various points, we’ve had moderated grades trumping centre assessment grades (CAGs), and mocks trumping moderated grades, we’re now in a situation where both CAGs and moderated grades will count, with pupils awarded the higher of the two. So, what impact can […]

Exam boards promise GCSE grades will be delivered to schools on time

Exam boards have promised to provide schools their GCSE results tomorrow morning as usual – allowing pupils to receive their final grades on time. The Joint Council for Qualifications, which represents exam boards, confirmed schools and colleges will receive their results at 00.01 tomorrow. This would be the centre assessment grade, of the calculated grade […]