Let’s celebrate the results this week – but don’t argue for the end of exams

The week that GCSE and A-Level results come out is always difficult, but in these extraordinary times, the stress has taken on a new dimension. The students receiving their results this week are the cohort who have been most affected by the disruption caused by the pandemic. It is they who have seen their examination studies interrupted by two extended school closures, remote learning and multiple government U-turns.

Despite the incredible efforts of children, families and teachers, education during the pandemic has exposed the gap between the disadvantaged and their peers. Deprived of the in-person expertise of their teachers and engagement with their peers, children who rely on an incredible education have suffered the most. While schools have moved mountains to provide high-quality remote learning for their pupils, we know that it has not been the same as in-person teaching. And as a result, the children that our comprehensive education system was established for have missed out.

This is why it was right that the government – belatedly, and with a minimum of finesse – moved to a system of centre assessed grades for this year. The move has allowed schools to assess their children based on the evidence that they have and based on the learning that it was possible for them to complete. It has led to pupils sitting internal exams, set by their school, which has helped to give an indication of the grade that they would have achieved if their examination years had not been disrupted by the pandemic.

Make no mistake. This process has been rigorous and relied on a great deal of work by school leaders, teachers and, of course, the children who have had to adapt, revise and work towards an ever-changing situation. Because of this, we should have no doubts that the results issued this week are completely deserved.

But in many ways, our children can’t win. To some, these results will be the result of grade inflation and teacher bias and they will pollute the airwaves trying to devalue the hard-earned successes of this generation of children. For others, the centre assessed grades used this year will provide further evidence that radical reforms are required and external exams should be consigned to the dustbin of history.

Labour must steer a path between the two. Firstly, we should counter the voices in the right-wing press who will attempt to downgrade the validity of these results. Instead, we must celebrate the hard work of children, parents and teachers in achieving these results. Secondly, we should ignore the calls from voices as diverse as the NEU and Phillip Collins to ditch GCSEs. This might seem like easy populism but we must be disciplined enough to know that ending exams will only harm the very children that the Labour Party exists to defend.

This generation of young people are extraordinary. In the face of a pandemic no-one could have imagined, they stayed at home and accepted the limits to their education in order to protect the most vulnerable members of our society. They dealt with lockdowns, remote learning, Zoom lessons and did so without complaint. There can be no doubt that they deserve the results that they have earned. And we should be incredibly proud of them.

What we shouldn’t do is claim this week’s results are evidence that we should abolish exams. Not only is this not the time, but it would be a hugely damaging and retrograde step that would further ingrain and deepen the inequalities in our society. Although exams are not perfect, they are the best system we have for widening opportunity in Britain.

Exams provide a level playing field for all young people. They explicitly test a specified, and publicly available, list of content in a controlled environment that gives each student the chance to shine. They reward those who have worked hard and who have been well-prepared. Children understand them and look forward to this rite of passage that marks the beginning of their adult life.

Of course, there are still inequalities in an examination system that disadvantage some children more than others, and these need to be addressed. We know that there is a significant word gap between the underprivileged and the rest; that some schools provide a better education than others; and that some pupils have greater access to tutoring and support than others. These should be addressed and our education policy should seek to tackle them.

None of these problems would be improved by scrapping exams. In fact, they would make them worse. They would remove the external scrutiny that results provide and would exacerbate the disadvantage gap even further. Many of the arguments for keeping exams are down to the alternatives being even worse.

Some are in favour of a coursework-only model where students would be able to produce a body of work to present for assessment, whether internal or external. This would be a disaster for social mobility. It would further entrench the advantage of those who have support at home, as they would be able to draw on the advice of either their parents or a dedicated tutor. It would create a system that demanded perfection and penalised pupils for minor errors that could be removed by the proof reading of a tutor.

It would also create an education system that forced schools into becoming exam factories. Teachers would be perversely encouraged to ditch any content that wouldn’t be included in their coursework exams. Children would miss out on the full richness and cultural capital of the curriculum, and instead narrow their experiences to the minimum needed to produce a perfect piece of coursework. Pressure would increase and the joy of education would be lost.

We shouldn’t ignore the unintended consequences of this type of arrangement either. It would lead to unbearable and unmanageable workload for teachers and school leaders. There would have to be an increase in the amount of marking and feedback on individual pieces of work, and teachers would be expected to moderate their work and the work of other schools in their unpaid time.

We know this because it is exactly what has happened this year. The role of exam boards, which have charged schools the same fees as before the pandemic, has largely fallen to teachers and to schools. Marking the additional exam papers required, moderating the papers that had been assessed by their colleagues, analysing the results to ensure that they fit with past performance, building an evidence portfolio for each child in case of appeals. All of this has had to be done at the same time as schools were managing the government’s incompetent management of the pandemic.

Make sure that any conversations that we have about results this week are focused on celebrating the incredible achievements of this cohort of children. The generation that has found a way to keep learning and keep safe throughout a pandemic that none of us would have predicted. And if you want to talk about closing the disadvantage gap in our education system, talk about strategies and policies that will help – and ignore the imagined utopia of an exam-free system.