This is a thread about how our school’s English Lit results got downgraded yesterday, from A*- E to C -E, told in poems. Our school is exceptionally inclusive. Every year it takes into English A Levels several students with 5 or C at GCSE, like Shukria

Many schools wouldn’t do this. But we know that students who have only been speaking English a short time, like Shukria, or who have had an interrupted education like Rabia, can improve with good teaching.

And they do. Every year, lots of them make exceptional progress and get grades C-E. Every year, too, we have some students who get A*, like Vivien, Mukahang and Helen, but they are a smaller percentage.

This year, the Ofqual algorithm reckoned the probable performance of the Rabia and Shukrias on national norms, not the on historical progress in our school. That was applied to the percentage of our students who normally get A* -B

And it narrowed it a lot, because we do so exceptionally well in progress. In fact, it narrowed it below the percentage equivalent to a single person in a class – eg 9% in a class of 10 – and, as students are rounded down, it calculated that no one could have A*-B.

Not even R, with her 9 at GCSE, A at AS, and run of top marks in every single assessment.

It’s terrible for the students, but spare a thought for their outstanding teachers, penalised for outstanding progress and outstanding inclusivity, for making A Level work against the odds, and penalised where it hurts them most, in the progress of their beloved students.