A legal challenge over this summer’s GCSE English marking is set to begin at the High Court on Tuesday following claims that thousands of students were “unfairly” downgraded.
A group of pupils, schools, local authorities and teaching unions is taking legal action against a decision by two exam boards to raise the boundary needed to achieve a C grade.
They say the move meant an estimated 10,000 pupils sitting exams in June received a lower than expected D grade and want to see their papers regraded.
Brian Lightman, general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders (ASCL), said he was “quietly optimistic” about the outcome of the hearing, which is expected to last three days.
“Thousands of young people in England were unfairly downgraded in June in order to compensate for mistakes made earlier in the year,” he said.
“The only fair course of action for these students is to regrade the papers.”
AQA and Edexcel exam boards both raised the boundary needed to obtain a grade C in GCSE English between January and June.
But AQA, which sets around 60 percent of GCSE English exams, has insisted it followed “correct procedures and awarded the right grades” while Edexcel said the change was necessary to “maintain standards”.
The alliance is challenging the decision, and what they say is the failure of England’s exams regulator Ofqual to handle the situation.
Ofqual has previously vowed to “rigorously defend” its position but was not commenting ahead of the hearing.
An Ofqual review in August acknowledged that grade boundaries were higher for English exams sat in June than for those taken in January.
The watchdog’s report concluded, however, that exams marked in January were “graded generously” and that grade boundaries for June assessments were “properly set, and candidates’ work properly graded”.
Both the exam boards have offered resits free of charge to students who sat the June exams in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, but have refused to regrade the papers.
Around 2,300 students who took exams set by the Welsh exam board WJEC in Wales have been regraded over the same issue under orders from the Welsh government.
High Court to hear GCSE English challenge
