2021 Exams: Shattering Gavin Williamson’s “cast-iron” guarantee

Is the guarantee really ‘cast-iron’?

Despite education secretary Gavin Williamson’s “cast-iron” guarantee that exams would “absolutely” go ahead, many persist in their demands for the government to follow a similar route to the 2020 exam season, cancelling the exams and rewarding grades through an improved algorithm or centre assessed system (CAGs).

With the new strain of COVID resulting in the largest rise in cases since the beginning of the pandemic, harsher restrictions being introduced, and the status of schools reopening in January increasingly uncertain, the discussion has firmly regained its place back on the agenda.

There appears to be a growing consensus amongst students that exams should be cancelled (for a combination of reasons I will detail below). A petition to cancel GCSE, AS and A level exams received over 170,000 signatures with the government responding that they were “committed to […] exams taking place next year”; believing them to be the “best and fairest way of judging students’ performance.”

Irrespective of the government’s belief in exams being the “fairest way of judging student’s performance”, it is quite clear that there are no circumstances in which standardised exams could be conducted fairly.

Why?

Students have missed a substantial period of learning

Lockdown:

All students have missed out on at least 5 months of face-to-face teaching. Now, on the surface, this may not appear to be a serious issue; all students are in the same boat having missed the same amount of time, right?

Wrong…

The pandemic has disproportionately affected the UK’s poorest and most disadvantaged students. Not only were attainment rates amongst these students substantially lower as a result of poor internet access, access to a laptop, or a general absence of a productive learning environment, but many were also burdened further by personal and family responsibilities. It is clear, therefore, that not everyone’s pandemic experience with learning was the same and thus they should not be assessed as such.

Students with additional needs were also more negatively affected. A study completed by Ofsted found that SEND children “were left struggling from the sudden withdrawal of essential services and isolation of lockdown.”

Since reopening:

Many schools have been forced to close their doors since September as a result of internal outbreaks after a member of staff or student has contracted the virus. Although online lessons would have been provided as an alternative, these students would not have received the same quality of education during the time they were forced to isolate themselves.

In addition, similar problems of access would have further damaged the performance of the most disadvantaged students whose educational experience would have been further tarnished as a result of school closure.

This also may lead to regional discrepancies, with areas that have had more concentrated breakouts and higher case numbers being hit harder than those that have not.

Lastly, many individual students, or small groups of students, have had to isolate as a result of personal contacts, or shield as a result of clinical vulnerability; further discrediting any suggestion that exams could be conducted in a way that ensured equality and fairness in examination.

How can you have standardised testing when there is no standard educational experience?

Wales and Scotland have cancelled their exams

Wales:

Exams in Wales have been scrapped in an attempt to mitigate the impact of COVID-19 on pupils. Wales has instead opted for a CAG system with grades being awarded based on classroom examination; Welsh Education Minister Kirsty Williams declaring that headteachers would work together on a “national approach” to ensure consistency.

Welsh students will be completing “assessed tasks” under the supervision of their teachers over a period of months. These ‘tasks’ are set to begin from February 2021, providing that schools remain open, and will allow teachers to gain a more holistic understanding of their pupil’s performance in order to award fair and calculated results.

These results will be recognised by universities and considered to be of the same value as grades awarded through standardised examination.

Scotland:

Scottish Education Minster John Swinney announced on October 5th that National 5s (the Scottish GCSE equivalent) would be scrapped in 2021, however, stated that Advanced Highers (Scottish A level equivalent) would continue in the summer, albeit two weeks later.

This decision was reversed on the 8th of December when Advanced Highers too were cancelled following the recognition that the damage to young people’s education was so severe and disproportionate that exams could not be held in a fair manner.

Scotland has opted to award grades based on teacher’s predictions (CAGs).

English, Welsh, and Scottish results are considered to be of equal standard, and students from each of these devolved nations will be competing for the same university places or workplace opportunities.

The Issue:

The concern is that students in Scotland and Wales will benefit, at the expense of English students, by exam cancellation with their results likely being slightly inflated due to more contextualised grades. This would be an unfair disadvantage to English students that may miss out on opportunities based on decisions outside of their control.

How can you have standardised testing when there is no standard approach to results within the union?

Impact on mental health

What is often ignored is the damage to young people’s mental health as a result of the pandemic. Students have been forced into an alien environment, made to isolate in their homes without seeing their friends, and forced to work remotely — some only receiving work through email instructions.

Although this may seem like a small problem in the grand scheme of things, these subtle impacts will have considerable implications on academic performance.

Student’s work ethic and ability to retain information during a time where they have been plagued by worry, anxiety, and confusion is much lower than it would be under normal circumstances. Any examination would fail to reflect the true ability of the student.

The impacts on those that have lost loved ones or have been forced to shield during the pandemic would be even more severe.

The enormous pressure burdening young people to catch up on missed content and to cram extra learning with revision is having detrimental impacts on the mental health of both students and staff. Cancelling the exams would not only relieve this burden but allow for students to really benefit from their learning, as opposed to purely worrying about how they will manage to remember all of the information required for their exams

Government measures do not solve the problem

Gavin Williamson has announced what he described as an “exceptional package of measures” designed to level the playing field for pupils whose studies have been disrupted by the coronavirus pandemic. However, this “exceptional package” fails to address any of the aforementioned issues.

Williamson announced that exams would be pushed back 3 weeks, however, this does not address the 5 months of missed teaching. Not to mention that in reality, the timetable of exams for most subjects has barely changed with two weeks of the aforementioned three weeks being half term.

Williamson announced that exam results would be awarded more generously because students in 2021 would be competing for university places with many people from the 2020 cohort. However, this does not address the fact that English students are competing with Welsh and Scottish students, despite not all students sitting the exams.

Williamson announced that students will receive advance notice of some topic areas to focus their revision, however, this fails to address the months of content that has been missed.

The Shattering

Exams must be cancelled to ensure people are graded based on their ability, not based on their circumstance, location, or wealth.

Any exam concessions introduced by the government will simply serve as a plaster on a very serious wound. The only fair and effective solution to ensure fairness is to cancel all exams for all students in 2021.

It is time for students to come together and help shatter Gavin Williamson’s “cast-iron” guarantee.

We are the ones sitting the exams. We are the ones whose futures are determined by these exams. We must come together to ensure that we are all treated fairly in this process.

Students made Gavin Williamson U-turn last year — let’s do it again.