There should be a return to the 2019 distribution of GCSE and A-level grades, a headteachers’ union has said, to avoid the higher grades of the past two years becoming “baked in”, the TES reports.
Geoff Barton, general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders (ASCL), has said it would be “difficult to justify” maintaining this spread of grades if exams do return in the summer.
His call as many, especially those in the independent sector, are asking for GCSEs to be reformed or scrapped entirely.
Mr Barton said: “We thought long and hard about this issue because there is no easy answer to the dilemma of what should be done after two years of grading turbulence.
“On balance, we felt that returning to the grade distribution of 2019 represented the fairest approach for past, present and future students.”
Final plans for how GCSE and A-level exams will be graded in 2022 will be revealed next month.
Any adaptations that will be made to next year’s exams to take pupils’ learning loss into account will also be announced by Ofqual.
Mr Barton said: “We’ve always said the system of teacher assessment used this year was bound to result in a different spread of grades because it was a different system than exams.
“By the same logic, it would be difficult to justify continuing with that distribution if exams do return as expected next summer.
“It would also ‘bake in’ higher grades with various problems around the resulting perception of the value of other grades and differentiation at the top end.”