A week ago, Roger Taylor, chairman of Ofqual, wrote in the Sunday Telegraph that
"Calculations of grades by Ofqual was the fairest possible way to award marks. Basing grades only on teacher assessments “would create a perpetual unfairness between this year’s grades compared to past and future generations."
This places fairness at the centre of the argument for what Ofqual did, which, you might think is reasonable enough as a fair test of an individual's ability, aptitude, suitability, etc is at the heart of public examinations; they are an Enlightenment project, after all.
It has become very clear, however, that [i] fairness to the individual is not at the heart of what the regulator has done this year, and [ii] that many individuals have been treated very unfairly; generally speaking, those attending schools with large class sizes or in socially-deprived areas are prominent in this latter group. For an insight into what the regulator did, and why certain schools were badly affected when others weren't, see this comment from Paul Johnson, Director of the Institute for Fiscal Studies, in today's Times. It's difficult to read this and not ask, 'did no one realise the potential consequences?' Well, of course, people and groups did, but their comments and suggestions were not acted on by Ofqual and its Board.
And for an insight into what schools were required to do by the regulator, see this account on the Spectator website from Alice Hudson, the Executive Head of the Twyford CoE Academies Trust.
It seems to me that the running the regulator have made a complete pigs's ear of this – and there will be worse to come with the GCSEs. For what it's worth (not all that much it has to be said), I've written to my MP demanding that heads roll at Ofqual.
he politics of this is dreadful for a government that has made 'levelling up' its creed – and it has made the recent volte face by the Scottish administration look almost principled. As for who regulates the regulators, well, we shall see.
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