‘Never again’ exams petition sees signatures soar

Teachers, parents and pupils are calling for a major re-think of next summer's school exams, following the chaos of this year’s A-level, GCSE and B-tec results.

Organised by the National Education Union, the petition backs earlier calls from head teachers for an urgent independent review into what went wrong after pupils got record grades in a switch to school assessments.

A faulty algorithm had deliberately marked young people down, but in ways that headteachers described as ‘unfair and unfathomable’.

The petition calls for plans for next year's GCSE and A-Level exams to take account the fact that candidates will have missed months of schooling, saying that the 2021 cohort must reflect ‘this lost learning time’ and include more question choices and a ‘slimmed down syllabus’. It also called for a system of teacher moderated grades in case there is further disruption to exams next summer due to a second wave of Coronavirus and further lockdowns.

Mary Bousted, joint general secretary, National Education Union, said: "This government has no one but itself to blame. The weaknesses in a system of its own creation have been left horribly exposed. What is needed is nothing short of an independent review into what went wrong, and a determination to ensure it never happens again. That would be a big step towards regaining the trust of parents and the profession."

The Association of School and College Leaders has backed the call, whilst also asking for the possibility of open book exams in English or formula sheets in maths and science, in recognition of the reduced time pupils have had to learn.