Something for the weekend
Something for the weekend
Something for the weekend
I keep thinking about that oh-so-jaunty letter from AQA to Heads of English, written as if the summer’s GCSE fiasco was nothing more than a passing shower on the day of the Mother’s Union picnic.
It shows how little they are in touch with schools and how desperate they are to retain their contracts.
But that passing shower has wreaked havoc on many students, many teachers, and the reputations of many schools.
The Secretary of State appears to think that if he doesn’t mention it, then we’ll all stop going on about the GCSE fiasco.
He’s completely wrong, of course. We’ll keep going on about it until Twitter freezes over.
So I thought that this weekend, the occasion of the first London Festival of Education, it might be worth lobbing in a rather important talking-point that visitors to the Festival might like to debate over coffee.
It’s this: many schools have traditionally used January entries to help ensure that Year 11 students get their grade C. That will now be much more difficult because, whilst the marks will be released, the exact location of the grade boundaries will be a closely-guarded secret until August.
Which makes me think: why bother with January entry?
And if you agree with that, then this paragraph from AQA’s letter to centres yesterday may make your blood boil as it did mine:
Schools deciding to withdraw entries from the January 2013 series will not be charged for the entries, providing that this is done before December 15th 2012. We will issue credit notes for withdrawals received by this date.
Credit notes? CREDIT NOTES?
That means our money sits in their bank account rather than in ours.
My view is that the ground-rules have been significantly changed since we signed up for January exams, that the service offered by the exam boards is now defective, and that credit notes simply will not do.
And I think the Sale & Supply of Goods Act supports this.
So here’s our homework for next week. As school leaders, let’s write to our examination board withdrawing from January entry and demanding not a credit note but a full refund.
After all, it’s the exam boards and Ofqual that have screwed this up. They developed the exams, failed to ensure accuracy, failed to moderate, failed to regulate, and then had the audacity to blame the teachers.
At the very least we should get our money back for January 2013 exams.
Geoff Barton
Friday 16 November 2012
21:50
Friday, 16 November 2012