Teachers' unions have today condemned the findings of an Ofqual report into this year's GCSE exam result fiasco as an“insult” and “diversion”, which “flies in the face of the evidence”.
But interviews conducted and collated by the exam watchdog appear to show teachers, under “strange and unhealthy pressures” to boost students’ grades and ensure they succeed, admitting to asking children to rewrite work and cheating on coursework assessments.
The report had found evidence of teachers over-marking their students’ work, with the pressure of getting pupils to at least a grade C forcing them to compromise their professional principles.
The anonymous confessions, published in Ofqual’s official report, condemn the “woolly, unreliable, loose assessment system” and bemoan a mark scheme “so vague you can drive a coach and horses through it.”
One teacher accused the system of controlled assessment, where pupils are supposed to complete work at school under strict conditions, of “creating suspicion and distrust between schools”.
Another claimed he had been instructed to cheat in order to keep up with other schools and was encouraged to "fiddle" results, while a third suggested pupils must be "nannied through every stage".
The evidence was compiled by Ofqual from interviews with more than 100 participating schools, and extracts taken from the TES web forum for teachers.
A separate report this week showed how some 130 schools were penalised for cheating, with a further 60 teachers penalised for 'malpractice'.
In their own words: how teachers were pressured into bending the system
I've just read my school e-mail to find the instructions for getting the CA
[controlled assesssment] folders together, and including the instruction
‘All folders must be at or above target grade.’ This is being done by either
getting kids to rewrite CAs after they've been marked, or by fiddling the
Speaking and Listening grades to make up for lost marks on the written work.
When I've dared to suggest that the CAs should be done in exam conditions
and that lots of schools are doing that, I'm told that that is rubbish, that
CAs are really coursework, and that we have to cheat because other schools
will be doing so, and we cannot afford to let our results slip at all.
The drive to achieve targets is definitely corrupting and I loathe being made
to feel that I am not doing right by my students because I am not making
them stay behind after school week after week to rewrite the bloody things.
The school felt that proper regulation of CA was well-nigh impossible and that
controlled conditions were being interpreted very differently in different
schools. This was creating suspicion and distrust between schools.
I feel I am being made to cheat. I've taught the kids and then let them do the
tasks - we have to do them in the classrooms, except for those who need
access arrangements, who are under the beady eye of external invigilators. I
taught my kids, gave them the opportunity to make notes, and then did the
damned things like an exam. Result? Lots of them underperformed against
their targets. Not good enough. This work, I am told, is really coursework,
and has to be at target grade, or they will not reach their targets at the
end of the course. Others in the department have done marked drafts. I'm now
feeling pressured to get some of mine to redo various pieces. I've voiced my
objections, but have been told that the long and the short of it is that
they have to be nannied through at every stage - there is disbelief when I
say that some schools are doing the CAs as exams. I resent the implication
that I am failing my kids, when actually what they produce is probably more
accurate as an indication of their abilities than their target grades are.
The sooner this nonsense is stopped and we go back to 100 per cent exams,
the better.
Wide variety of methods for putting CA in place, such as students writing a
first draft which was then given written comments by teacher. This being
subsequently written up by a student. Doesn’t feel like a level playing
field.”
The mark scheme is so vague you can drive a coach and horses through it.
However, the real problem is that no matter what syllabus we teach, we will
still be expected to get students up to grades that are unrealistic and we
will still be expected to 'teach to the test' to get them through. The
pressure on teachers to get results is preventing us from doing any real
teaching.
We have been asked to rework controlled assessments, mark them and give them
back for improvement. In some cases we are virtually writing them for the
students. This to me is no different to coursework and raises the issue of
why coursework was replaced.
A Very Private Tutor
Gervas Huxley
David Ellis