It has been a bumpy educational world over the past two years. Examinations have been cancelled, schools have moved online and pupils have had to coach with often extended periods of absence through either contracting Covid themselves or being a close contact. The effects of these impediments will be felt in the years to come, but already we are seeing some worrying signs in children of all ages as we slowly return to normality
Some of the very youngest children are coming to school having spent little or no time in the company of their peers. Learning how to socialise, how to share and how to interact with others in the community has been a tall order for some, with teachers reporting highly stressed or very emotional youngsters in their classes.
For older children, effects have been twofold. They too are manifesting signs of stress in increased numbers and schools are reporting these to the mental health support services more frequently.
The second effect has been on the pupils’ education itself. Whilst many schools worked hard during both lockdowns to provide online learning, a combination of lack of access to technology, an inability to attain a peaceful work environment and, most importantly, a lack of motivation in some pupils to work outside of school have all contributed to an adverse impact on youngsters’ learning.
In order to combat this for examination groups, schools have been provided with advance information on what the examinations at GCSE and A-level will contain this year. In some cases, the content has been reduced and candidates have been directed away from revising certain areas of the specification. In other cases, pupils are provided with help such as formula sheets for maths and science, thereby reducing the amount of material for them to learn. This is a nice idea in theory, and no doubt it will have a reassuring on teachers and pupils who have had an disrupted experience.
However I am not sure that this measure will solve the problem as it intends. First of all, the assumption is that all pupils have suffered the same loss of learning over the past two years. This is clearly not the case: some pupils worked hard over lockdown and were supported with first-rate online learning. In other cases, online learning was patchy or non-existent and the pupils were not able to get online as quickly as others. A one-size-fits-all solution will therefore give an advantage to those already in a strong position, whilst not solving the problems for those who have been hit most.
This leads to the second problem. Those marking the exams won’t know how much each individual candidate has suffered. All they can do is apply the mark scheme to what is on the page before them. We have already been told that this year grade boundaries are likely to be more generous than in 2019, the last year public examinations were taken. The combination of uneven experiences, well-intentioned help and low grade boundaries will lead inevitably to a situation where grade inflation exists, and benefits those who are most advantaged to start with.
Given the negative publicity surrounding independent schools exam results last year (which took a partial and distorted analysis of the figures to draw some extremely dubious conclusions), we are in a situation where, through no fault of their own, pupils at independent schools are likely to gain better results comparatively again this year.
Many will, quite rightly, view this is as unfair. However, this unfairness is generated by the attempted remedy rather than the problem. It looks like for the third year running, and probably not for the last year, the exam outcomes for pupils will be unfairly tainted by the mismanagement of those in charge of