Tens of thousands of school pupils who were awarded D grade English GCSEs were the victims of a “statistical fix” the High Court heard today.
Grade boundaries in this summer’s GCSEs were “illegitimately manipulated” in order to reduce the overall number of pupils getting C grades the court heard.
An alliance of pupils, teaching unions, schools and councils are seeking a judicial review of the decision to shift grade boundaries at the last minute in the summer exams.
Clive Sheldon QC representing the alliance said exam boards had abused their power and “created inconsistencies within the same cohort. The way they did it was grossly unfair.”
The alliance wants GCSE exams taken in June last year to be regraded in line with grade boundaries used for the same exams in January 2012.
Mr Sheldon questioned the decision by exams boards AQA and Edexcel to raise the boundaries. He said it meant some pupils who took exams in June scored higher marks than those who sat in January, but got lower overall grades.
He told the court that pupils and teachers had no warning the boundaries were going to be moved in an “arbitrary and capricious manner.”
He said exams watchdog Ofqual “closed its eyes to the manipulation that went on and had gone on. Ofqual instructed the exam boards to meet certain predictions.”
He added that some pupils had to get ten more marks in June exams than those in January to secure the same C grade.
“Hyper correcting the final modules to maintain standards over time is not allowed” he said.
Ofqual has previously suggested grade boundaries had been moved in response to teachers overmarking controlled assessment papers.
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But in court Mr Sheldon said: “That explanation of overmarking is not an answer to what was done but it provided an excuse for what was done.”
He added: “No school teachers or student could possibly have anticipated such radical changes to the grade boundaries from those that were set and published by the exam boards “Nothing that the exam boards or Ofqual said prepared them for this possibility. They reasonably accepted to be treated consistently.”
The case continues.
