Labour demands government waive A-Level results appeal fees

Kate Green has called on the government to waive fees for schools and colleges appealing A-Level grades after data released has shown that thousands of students have had their results revised down.

Following the awarding of A-Levels in England, Wales and Northern Ireland today, the party has demanded that the government make sure that “no student is unable to challenge their grade if they think it is not accurate”.

Pupils across the country have received estimated grades today following the cancellation of the usual end-of-year exams when schools closed due to the coronavirus pandemic. Figures show that 39.1% had their result moderated down.

Commenting on today’s results, Shadow Education Secretary Green said: “Across the country, thousands of young people are opening their exam results full of hope, only to see their opportunities and their futures dashed.”

According to the Office of Qualifications and Examinations Regulation (Ofqual), those with a grade C or above were downgraded from teacher estimations by over 10% among children from the most disadvantaged background.

Green added: “This is a huge injustice. Pupils, parents and teachers are rightly angry and upset. The government has had five months to sort this out. Action is needed in days, not weeks.

“Students should be guaranteed the right to individual appeals and the fee for appeals should be waived. Students must be treated fairly and nothing should be ruled out, even if Ministers have to follow the U-turn that was forced on the Scottish government.”

Under the current appeals system, schools and colleges are required to pay up-front for appeals and can only claim back the money if successful. Labour has highlighted that private schools are currently twice as likely to submit appeals.

The independent regulatory body Ofqual has recognised this: “Independent schools tended to submit a greater percentage of their qualification entries, at both GCSE and A-Level (11.9%).” This compares to 5.4% to 8.6% for other school types.

108,000 result reviews were carried out last year. Analysis on previous exams shows that private schools are more successful in these appeals. Labour has said this shows that “private schools are better resourced to challenge these decisions”.

Overall across England, 27.9% of entries were awarded an A or A* grade this summer, which is up by 2.4 percentage points on last year. For the school year ending 2019, 25.5% achieved the top grades.

But the figures released by Ofqual today show that 35.6% of the predicted awards given out today were adjusted down by one grade, while 3.3% were brought down by two grades and 0.2% came down by three grades.

Teachers set a predicted grade for each subject and a ranking of each pupil within their class, which has been modified using schools’ previous performance, attainment in previous years and the expected national distribution of grades.

The grades released today follow results day in Scotland last week, where the Scottish Qualifications Authority revised down 93.1% of the those awards that were moderated by the regulatory body, affecting 124,564 pupils.

After protests and a bid by Scottish Labour to remove Scottish Education Secretary John Swinney from post, the Scottish government announced that the downgrading would be abandoned and initial teacher estimates used.

Green described the downgrading of nearly two in five A-Level grades in England as a “huge injustice” this morning and said that “young people will be opening their results today to find grades which undermine their work and their potential”.

Earlier this week, Labour leader Keir Starmer warned that the Prime Minister risked “robbing a generation of young people of their future” unless he urgently tackled the unfairness in this year’s replacement exam results system.