News Desk

A’ level results which are due to be published this week have again become a subject of controversy with the "Assessment Reform Group" warning parents to not "trust" the data on schools and exam results.

Exams results and league tables should be qualified with a government "health warning" on the data which has been heavily used by parents and school inspectors to assess how well pupils, teachers are performing.  Three consecutive years of bad results can see an entire school shut.

The "Assessment Reform Group" has said that raw scores are not a fair way to assess how well a school is doing, and does not give the overall performance of pupils during the year, and in fact markers of exam papers make errors which can give unfair results.

"Those compiling and presenting information should provide a disclaimer stating what the data is designed to measure". - Professor Mary Jones, Cambridge University lecturer who commented in The Guardian.

In March this year 44%% of 14 year olds English exams were wrongly marked, and given the governments warning that three consecutive years of bad marks could lead to a school closing underlines the seriousness of the problem.

The government has classified a school as "failing" with 30% of its pupils achieving less than 30% 5 A*-C grades at GCSE including maths and English.

photo credit: GCSE results Burlington Danes Academy. Sabrina Knight, Habiba Ali, Luwam Emereb, Kerrymore Aldridge and Emiliya Zasheva.

Photography by Leigh Quinnell, David Tett and Fiona Saunders via flckr.com