End of the Line
End of the Line
End of the Line
So now we know.
At great length and great expense two high court judges concluded today that the summer’s GCSE English results had been “a matter of widespread and genuine concern" and that “the structure of the qualification” was the “source of unfairness”.
They acknowledged that students had been unfairly treated.
But they also concluded that the examination boards, whom we pay to administer exams, and Ofqual, which the Government pays to regulate the examination system, had acted fairly.
Some of us beg to disagree.
And many questions are raised by the verdict:
Why did the exams boards get it so wrong? What has happened as a result? Who has been fired? Why was Ofqual so slow to respond to concerns they had raised long before the exams took place? Why did their subsequent report start by blaming the exam boards and then switch to blaming the teachers? Why was Ofqual allowed to investigate itself?
How are English teachers supposed to prepare this year’s cohort of GCSE students? Is the message that however you do in the examination hall, some faceless bureaucrat will decide your grade according to the superstitious mantra of ‘comparable outcomes?
There is much here that is murky and unexplained and contemptuous.
But, on the other hand, we fought a good campaign, and we reasserted ourselves as English teachers, Heads of English and school leaders who wouldn’t accept the prescribed mendacity and the inevitable mediocrity.
We fought back. We reconnected with our instincts in which we were described by Matthew Arnold as ‘the preachers of culture’.
It’s time to focus on that.
So that’s it, the end of the line.
I shan’t blog or tweet any more about the English fiasco of 2012.
But I suspect we will all look back to it and sense that it was the year when something changed - its aftermath being when this most ideological and snobbish of governments started to see that the profession wouldn’t roll over, proffer our bellies for an affection pat, and then lay timidly in the kitchen.
We showed that nothing matters more to English teachers than a sense of fair play, rigour and justice for our students.
And when the time comes to select exam boards, or to choose whether we take on roles as examiners and moderators, let’s use that knowledge to drive our principles.
Let’s focus on our students, but let’s not lose that sense of radical feistiness that has been displayed so magnificently over the past six months.
Because whatever the High Court says: you’ve been brilliant.
Geoff Barton
Wednesday 13 February 2013
20:00
Wednesday, 13 February 2013