Assessment Policy

Teacher Assessed Grades: A Q&A Session

Following the Government's announcement that formal exams including GCSEs and A-Levels have been cancelled for 2021, schools have been grappling with how best to support their learners and ensure that their grades are reasonable and fair. Emily Flower explores the complexities.

At face value, there appears to be similarities with what occurred in 2020 with Centre Assessed Grades, but in practice, schools now face a different kind of challenge. In 2020, there was limited information to rely upon and new evidence could not be created for the purposes of grading. In 2021, schools will be gathering their data in the full view of expectant parents and pupils.

In order to ensure that they have evidence upon which to grade their learners, many schools are choosing to proceed with 'mini' examinations internally.

We anticipate that the greatest concern our school clients will have at present is ensuring that the process they use to assess grades is considered to be fair by their parents and learners, as well as externally, so that they do not open themselves up to criticism and disputes.

This article looks at some questions schools may be asking at this stage, and how they can be answered. 

Is it ok that our pupils will see their exam questions in advance and how can we fairly support them with their revision?

Schools now know, following the announcement by the Department for Education on Wednesday 17th March 2021 that all new materials produced by exam boards will be publically released imminently, around one to three teaching weeks before exams would most likely be taken.

Many schools would have been relying on that new material for their exams and will want the security of using questions that already have a board-approved mark scheme.

The public release of all new materials immediately raises questions about fairness and grade inflation, as students will have around three weeks to read the new materials, knowing that in all likelihood, they will have seen the questions that will form part of their examination.

It is reasonable to assume that students who are well supported and industrious will take advantage of the situation to finesse their answers in advance. And of course your school will want to ensure, notwithstanding the practices of other schools in your sector, that your pupils are preparing as well as possible.

You may therefore be asking:

'Should we tell our pupils the exam materials will be made public in advance?'

'If they submit a practice paper, are we able to mark it and give feedback, knowing that it could end up being an exam question?'

From a legal perspective, there is not one right answer to these questions. However, our view is that hiding the fact that exam questions will be publicly released may actively disadvantage your students compared to pupils in other schools (in so far as any school's approach to teacher assessed grades is comparable). It is likely many pupils will know this in any event, so to announce it to all pupils ensures a more level playing field within your school, which will help teachers when deciding grades.

While the marking of past papers is normal practice to support revision, the school could be opening itself up to criticism if some pupils had their actual exam papers marked with feedback in advance, whereas others did not. Therefore, in those subjects where it is relevant, our recommendation would be that teachers continue to mark past papers, but that a blanket policy of not providing feedback on new materials is issued, if the school is going to use the new materials in its exams.

How can we protect ourselves from the criticism that we have unfairly inflated our grades?

We anticipate there will be significant grade inflation this year, as current indications suggest that exam boards will not question the professional judgement of teachers, unless there is a manifest error in the results in light of the controversy resulting from the aborted use of rankings and the Ofqual algorithm in 2020. However, schools can expect quality assurance checks so it will be important to be able to justify your grades and understand any significant deviations in your aggregate cumulative grade distributions when compared to your 2017-2019 results. The latest JCQ guidance requires schools to perform this historical analysis and comment on discrepancies, although there is not currently any advice on what else should be done about it (such as amending grades).

Grade inflation will affect schools differently. Schools that already benefit from strong academic results will see less grade inflation simply because a larger proportion of their grades may already be at A and A*, so there is a limit to how much higher they can go. Those schools with lower grade averages could potentially see significant inflation if a greater proportion of students see their average results rise by two or more grades.

Grade inflation is complicated and not usually born out of a desire to give students a better grade than they deserve. Many schools will wish to avoid inflating their grades because of the negative impact it may have on future year groups and the near-inevitable drop in results when life returns to normal.

Each school will have a different approach as to how to grade their pupils, which may involve using the additional assessment materials ('mini exams'), class work, course work and professional judgement in line with Ofqual's latest guidance. In the independent sector, we understand that most schools will rely heavily on internal exams.

In the circumstances, with students potentially being able to see their exam papers in advance, it is likely that this will result in some pupils getting better results than they would have otherwise.

Our view is that schools can only ensure that they can justify their grades as being reasonable in line with the evidence base available to them in each individual case. Brave would be the teacher who decided to mark down their student because, notwithstanding their results to date, they probably would not have performed to that level in a public exam in normal circumstances.

There will be discussion about grade inflation at a national level but students will have every reason to feel confident this year. Provided your percentage grade inflation is not so far out of kilter with the national average or your competitor schools as to stand out, it is more likely that any criticism you receive will come from disgruntled students who believe they were marked too harshly.

How do we prepared for contested grades?

It is likely your school will already have a wealth of experience of managing parent and student complaints as a result of Centre Assessed Grades in 2020. There will be lessons learnt from that experience which will hopefully help your school manage disputes this year. These might include:

  • ensuring that all evidence used to decide grades is kept, in so far as possible, and that teachers keep their 'workings' for deciding grades where the use of their discretion moves the result away from the empirical evidence. This information will not need to be sent to the exam boards unless you are requested to do so, but may be subject to scrutiny in cases where students wish to appeal their grades;
  • ensuring that the process for grading is standardised across your school and that different departments do not have different practices;
  • attempting, where possible, to rely on exam board guidance. Although you are not legally required to do so, your school may feel on safer ground if you can point to independent exam board guidance to justify your position;
  • preparing a policy explaining how disputes relating to Teacher Assessed Grades will be managed, the role of the school as opposed to the role of the exam board (particularly in relation to appeals which schools will only facilitate but not decide upon), and the limited power of the school to uplift contested grades where there has been no manifest error. This will need to be a living document that can be adjusted as further government and exam board guidance is released or updated. JCQ has recently published a helpful template policy which schools can use or adapt to their specific circumstances. This must be uploaded by 30 April;
  • keep communicating with parents so they understand the process for this year, what policies are in place and what their rights are. For example:
    • it should be made clear from the outset that the evidence used to grade a student, as well as the grading itself, is not a matter for negotiation with students or parents and the decision for this rests entirely with the school;
    • students should understand that their grade represents a holistic view of their performance and therefore, unlike in normal years, should not result in appeals about being 'a few marks away' from a grade boundary;
    • students should not expect grade inflation as grading will be based on the same expected standard of achievement as any normal year and schools are being encouraged by Ofqual to ensure that it is no easier or harder for a student to obtain a particular grade this year as compared to previous years;

This will help to reduce appeal numbers as any concerns will hopefully be highlighted earlier in the process;

  • in line with Ofqual's guidance, be prepared to take note of and potentially report students, parents or carers who are putting teachers under pressure to submit grades that are higher than the evidence supports. This can be mentioned in the policy on grading as it may work to put off some families from pressurising teachers.

We recommend that each school carries out its own 'lessons learnt' exercise in order to ensure that any preventable problems that arose last time around are avoided this year.

How do we manage special circumstances?

This year has not been easy for most learners and arguably, the entire student body is a 'special case' in this respect. Thus, the lack of public examinations, the release of materials in advance and in some cases, open book exams, can be justified.

However, there is also likely to be a proliferation of students formally requesting support from their school in light of special circumstances, unique to them, which will affect their ability to perform on the day, whether that is due to their mental or physical health or that of their immediate families.

This year schools are expected to decide how to respond to these cases, rather than passing them on to the exam boards. The system has always been relatively opaque, which does not make it easy to decide how to prioritise certain cases over others.

The position is made more complicated because teachers may be assessing students based on a range of results including classwork throughout the year, rather than simply using their examination grade. Therefore the wellbeing of the student earlier in the year may potentially be relevant in this respect.

Where it would not disadvantage the student to do so, it may be possible to select evidence which was not affected by the special circumstances.

This is not an easy area, but where evidence affected by special circumstances has to be taken into account which would have had a material effect on the student, our recommendation would be to follow the Joint Council on Qualification guidelines, which sets out the level of percentage uplift (up to a maximum of 5%) to offer to students dependent on their circumstances. For example, a 1% uplift for stress or anxiety for which medication has been prescribed through to a 5% uplift where the candidate has suffered the death of a parent.

This could be used not only to adjust internal examination results, but also, potentially, a coursework or classwork grading which then feeds into the overall grade.

Senior leaders will need to use their discretion, and a committee could be set up to review difficult cases so that decisions are being taken corporately and checked by a number of people. The policy or guidelines you rely on could be shared with parents as part of the process as well as any process of appeal to the exam board.

What next?

This year, as last, the landscape for grading is highly politicised and schools still do not have a full picture for what Teacher Assessed Grades will look like by the time their students take their exams. Changes of policy and additional guidelines can be expected.

 Emma Flower is an associate in Withers' charity law team. She concentrates on education institutions http://withersworldwide.com/