Weekend Stock-take
Weekend Stock-take
Weekend Stock-take
What has been remarkable this week is the way the GCSE fiasco has continued to play out in the media. It has rarely strayed far from the front pages.
Here’s where I think we are:
The TES reckons that Ofqual has broken its own rules in changing English grade boundaries. It has been gaining huge coverage across the media. Read the TES story here.
A powerful alliance including unions, governors, state and independent schools is being built to demand an independent review of the GCSE fiasco. Read more in the Telegraph report here.
Ofqual’s obsession with ‘comparable outcomes’ is coming under increasing scrutiny. It basically means that grades should stay the same from one year to the next. Where did they get that idea, I wonder? If applied to the Olympics, we won’t allow Team GB to earn more than 29 gold, 17 silver and 19 bronze medals in Rio 2016, as this would presumably signify falling standards. Read the analysis by Institute of Education director Chris Husbands here.
Such is the loss of confidence in Ofqual and the various awarding bodies that the Parliamentary Select Committee will sit on Tuesday to take evidence - a pretty damning endictment of our so-called exams regulator. Here’s the BBC report.
Meanwhile there are many unanswered questions about the cynical re-sit tactic - who it’s aimed at and how it will work; questions about why Ofqual didn’t identify problems with January marking earlier - isn’t that their job?; questions about just how independent Ofqual can actually be in all of this; questions about whether to go for re-marks or not.
Plus, increasingly, I’m hearing from examiners and moderators who are losing confidence in our high-stakes, joyless assessment system, and suggesting that the marking - alongside those shifting grade boundaries - has been a problem.
And of course, as I keep saying, here’s been a notable ongoing lack of leadership all week.
However: what has struck me most is the sheer determination of so many teachers and school leaders to keep campaigning. You have sent me messages of support, copied me in to the letters you and your parents and governors are sending to MPs and examination boards. You have exhibited toughness driven by fury.
I finish the week much more optimistic than I started it. I don’t think this injustice will go away. We won’t let it.
So just to say a big thank-you to the hundreds of people who have worked to keep this campaign alive. It’s a brilliant reminder of why many of us came into teaching - not for the pay, not for the kudos, not for the public recognition.
But because we loved our subject and loved the endless optimism of working with young people.
The past week has given a sense of a network for many of us - the feeling that we really are all in this together, with schools in the most advantaged circumstances under the cosh along with those in inner cities. We are united in our anger and our sense of injustice.
And, from where I am, seeing the anti-GCSE alliance brewing, awaiting the select committee session on Tuesday, and seeing the crumbling confidence in some of our political masters and institutions, I have a feeling that events are moving our way, that injustice will not be allowed to prevail.
But we shall see.
For now, just one emotion: gratitude - ie, thank you.
Geoff Barton
7 September 2012
11pm
Friday, 7 September 2012