Pupils at Swansea school Cefn Hengoed won't have their GCSE English paper regraded
PUPILS at a Swansea school who sat their GCSEs face the prospect of not having their papers regraded.
The row over the marking of English language papers intensified yesterday as the UK Education Secretary Michael Gove accused his Welsh counterpart Leighton Andrews of being “irresponsible and mistaken”.
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Leighton Andrews
Mr Andrews has ordered exam board the WJEC to regrade the papers for those pupils in Wales which will result in them being awarded higher grades.
Now MP for Swansea East Sian James has said exams at Cefn Hengoed School were set by the Assessment and Qualifications Alliance (AQA) not the WJEC. Mrs James said: “The government has admitted that there were inconsistencies in the marking system but the upshot is that it is pupils who will be disadvantaged.
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“Young people are being disadvantaged by government bloody-mindedness. Where is the justice in that?”
Mrs James added she understood that some pupils from the school who had been awarded apprenticeships on the basis of their projected grades were now being told there were no jobs for them. The school itself had not commented at the time of going to press.
At Westminster Mr Gove told an education select committee that the resulting disparity in grades between pupils in England and Wales would “undermine confidence” in the value of the qualifications.
But Mr Andrews hit back, saying: “Clearly it suits him to try and turn the deepening crisis in England into a political spat with Labour in Wales — but we are going to stick to the facts and the core issue at hand.
“The pupils affected by this mess deserve straight answers, not political game playing.”
The percentage of pupils from Wales gaining an A* to C in GCSE English language fell from 61.3 percent in 2011 to 57.4 percent this year
Mr Andrews called for the remarking after a report reviewing the exams marks, recommending the WJEC remarks the paper was published.
Headteacher of Ysgol Gyfun Ystalyfera, Matthew Evans, added: “With the English language papers, a number of our students were surprised with the results and that has impacted on them.
“I do welcome the minister’s intervention. Whatever mess we are in we cannot penalise pupils just because they happen to be in this year. I would say it is certainly going to have an impact on how qualifications are done in Wales.”
robert.goodman@swwmedia.co.uk
01792 514665
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