Headteacher feels "cheated" by GCSE grade changes (From Hereford Times)

Headteacher feels "cheated" by GCSE grade changes

8:50am Thursday 13th September 2012 in News By Lydia Johnson

THE headteacher of Lady Hawkins’ School in Kington has claimed several of his students were “cheated” out of their predicted GCSE English language grades.

Gary House said if GCSE grade boundaries had not changed beween January and July, 14 more Kington students would have gained a grade C where they now have a D.

He said: “It’s just terrible for students’ and teachers’ morale to have them work so hard only to be let down like this.

“It is unfair to ask them to re-sit – by this time the work is not fresh in their minds and they should be at college, but thanks to this boundary fluctuation, many students cannot get into sixth form.

“It seems contradictory for the government to be pushing higher education and then take away students’ access to it.”

It was revealed on Tuesday that exam board Edexcel was pressured by Ofqual – the regulator of exams in England – to alter grade boundaries a mere two weeks before exam results came out.

Teachers across the UK were disappointed by the changes which saw fewwer students who sat GCSEs this summer achieve top grades.

In Herefordshire, Jonathan Godfrey, headteacher of Hereford Sixth Form College, said more than 20 of their students who were re-sitting their GCSE English exams were affected, and Nigel Griffiths, headteacher at John Kyrle High School in Ross-on-Wye, said the school’s English results were 10 per cent down on what was predicted.