Dear Teachers,

I hope you’re keeping well and that your TAGs have been put to bed or at the least you can see the end is in sight!

Just a note to say that you’re all doing an amazing job but also to ask if any of you guys got the memo … apparently … (and don’t quote me on this) … exams were cancelled this Summer. Did you lot get missed off the circulation list too?? Not just me then?

Gavin Williamson said that they were putting their “trust in teachers” what he didn’t say was what this would look like and almost as important how it would feel having that “trust” put in you … the responsibility is massive. In a normal year (remember them?) students either put the work in or they don’t and in the main they get the grades they’ve worked for: there are always a comparatively (given the number that sit Maths GCSEs anyway!) small number of students that fall on the wrong side of a grade boundary and conversely there are also students that fall on the right side of the same grade boundary that the questions fell into place for them and if it had been a different, say question 7 on paper 1 that could have changed the outcome for them. In general, the national outcomes are almost set in stone year on year (apart from some slight tweaking in response to the national reference test that may take place) and so GCSEs are a sort of “zero sum” game … we all play the same game and where one school wins compared to a previous year that means another has made a loss. I get it. I really do.

This year though, it feels like we’ve been left to carry the can. I don’t mean left with no support from our schools I mean the perception that parents and students will have; it means that if they don’t get the grade they need/want it will be our fault … not the school and certainly not through any fault of their own. The bloody media doesn’t help either and by making the deliberate shift this year from “centre” assessed to “teacher” assessed Mr Williamson has only added fuel to the fire … it feels like a cop-out by the government and powers that be  … on the one hand the rationale of using “teacher” assessed as a way of giving confidence to parents and students that fair outcomes would be dished out is a sound objective but what comes with that is the pressure of trying to deliver reliable and valid outcomes (there is a discussion to be had here about the validity of exams … at the end of the day my view is that they are the least worst solution to the high-stakes accountability that schools operate with) that come from external exams without actual external exams.

So … lets go back to the “no exams” thing: the vast majority of teachers I’ve spoken to had their students sit some form of assessment. In the main, this decision was made by the leadership team and so most teachers found themselves having to find assessments to use. Yes, there was exam board support and past papers but finding a paper that isn’t freely available is becoming more and more difficult so many people found themselves trying to write or adapt papers. There was also the issue that some of these papers needed adapting to take into account the content that may or may not have been taught … then there was the marking which normally gets done by 1000’s of exam markers who are experts at marking high stakes assessments … don’t get me wrong I love marking exams but it has meant that something else has to give, priorities changed in the time from Feb to June so that now when we would be up to our neck in the exam season in a normal year, the foot is still firmly on the gas as we look at interventions and support needed for year 10, 9 etc. AND THEN comes the evidencing and grading … thinking about normal times, the exams are sat and its in the lap of the marking gods and assessment teams within exam boards (and ultimately Ofqual) to decide on the outcomes. This year though across the country teams of teachers would have been sat looking at where the cut off for certain grades should lie … as a maths teacher I thought, looking solely at the evidence and not the student attached to that data was going to be easy but it was still really useful to have the entire team discussing the outcomes and several times reminded each other to deal only with the evidence we have.

The pressure is horrible and doesn’t just come from knowing the students. Exams are not perfect but the grades that come from them are a determining factor for the next stage in many students’ education (at GCSE if you aren’t aware, in Maths and English not getting a grade 4 means that students have to continue to study the subject) and in fact at A level I know many students may change their A level/post 16 choices dependent on what they get at GCSE (I was one of those that until results day didn’t consider taking Maths because I didn’t think I was good enough compared to my peers and was all ready to take the subjects that I’d got the best grades up until that point .. now don’t laugh at this combination … I think it was: ICT, Food & Textiles!!) so even when we don’t know the students there is a feeling that we may be having a direct impact on them. I didn’t come into teaching to be the person that made the decision about what grade a student should get awarded. I want to teach. I want to teach and instil a love of my subject and of learning. I want them to know that they are capable of achieving most things they want to. I want to teach them to take the responsibility to do the things that are required of them to get where they want to be. After all, when they work for it and they achieve I know it will be one of the best feelings they experience … that sense of pride cannot be beaten.

With all that I’ve said it should be acknowledged that many of the conversations I’ve had with other teachers (and supported by my own experience) is that the vast majority of students have been phenomenal. Many have had a prolonged period of assessment and have taken the process really seriously. What they need now are some assurances that the qualifications they gain this Summer have the same validity as previous years and that means the media must back off. Not because we’ve had enough teacher bashing … but because the students need to have confidence in what they are awarded.

I sincerely hope that we get some clarity for Summer ‘22 soon – I’m not sure I have it in me to do CAGs/ TAGS or any other acronym again!! In fact, any other job would be preferable to having to do anything similar again … If we get back to normal (ish!) proper external exams next Summer I wonder if next year we should call them “exam” exams to differentiate from this years assessments?

On that note … teachers, you are truly amazing.

Mel x

PS: if you know, you know!