Posted by A Bristol MP has urged exam boards to show a “bit of humanity” towards students due to take GCSE and A-level exams this week.
Northavon MP Steve Webb said the cold weather may mean that some may not be able to get to schools to take their exams, which was unfair and required the exam boards to act.
But his call has been ignored by England’s exams watchdog, which has defended the decision to go ahead with the winter examinations series as the “best thing” for students.
“The cold weather may mean that some may not be able to get to schools to take their exams,” said the Liberal Democrat MP. “I think this would be very unfair on those who, through no fault of their own cannot get to schools/colleges, especially in more rural areas.
“The exam boards say the exams can’t be postponed, and nor can they be expected to set extra papers for (say) next month when hopefully the weather will have cleared. All they will say is that people who can’t take their modules now can do so in June.
“But this mean that some students get to do their exams now when the subject matter is fresh in their mind and they can concentrate on a small number of papers, whilst others will have to sit them in June alongside all their other papers. This is unlikely to be give a fair assessment of the relative strengths of the different candidates – which is presumably the point of the exams.
“Whilst some students will have no trouble getting in next week, too many face disruption for the exam boards to refuse to act. In my view the fairest thing to all would be a short delay – perhaps a month – which would save the exam boards having to set extra exams but would avoid an exam pile-up in the Summer. We need to get the exam boards to show a bit of humanity.”
But Isabel Nisbet, the acting chief executive of Ofqual, said postponing exams is “not easy” to do and contingency plans are in place to help students who cannot make it in, or are at schools that are still closed.
Speaking on BBC Breakfast, she said: “The best thing is for young people to do the exams when they planned to do it, because they’ve been working all over the holidays for them and you can see that’s part of their learning plan,” she said.
“The best thing is for them to do it, and the fairest thing for everybody is for as many as possible who can do it, to do it.”
All schools have now reopened in Bristol following the snow last week, but thousands of pupils have missed important lessons in the run-up to the exams.
Meanwhile, in parts of Gloucestershire and Wiltshire, schools remain closed as the thaw has failed to take hold enough to make access possible.
Further reading
