A-level students hit by Raac concrete problems in the past year will not get special treatment for their exams, England’s exams regulator has suggested.
Sir Ian Bauckham, chief regulator of Ofqual, said it would be difficult to allow a special uplift to some and then not make adjustments for other factors such as teacher shortages and inadequate facilities.
Hundreds of thousands of students in England, Wales and Northern Ireland are due to receive their A-level results on Thursday.
A headteachers union has said it is concerned about results after several schools were forced to offer remote learning when sub-standard Raac was found in buildings just days before the academic year began in September 2023.
A report earlier in 2024 called for pupils at schools where teaching had been badly affected, including St Leonard’s Catholic School, Durham, to have their exam results lifted by up to 10 per cent.
Sir Ian said: “It’s very difficult to know how you would draw a line and maintain fairness if you were going to say that it would be right, for example, to give a 10 per cent uplift to one set of circ*mstances, but not to other circ*mstances that people might argue have impacted the quality of education in the schools that they’re running, or they’re working in, or attending.
“The importance of fairness does mean that we have to apply the same rules, the same principles to everybody when it comes to formal public exams that act as proof of what they knew, understood and could do at the point where they were assessed.”
Sir Ian added: “There are lots of unfortunately difficult problems that affect schools – I’ve dealt with many of these myself over the years – and inadequate facilities, teacher shortages and so on are among the problems.
“But my responsibility as chief regulator is to make sure that our qualification system has integrity”
‘Significant disruption’
Department for Education (DfE) figures show that on Feb 8 2024, 234 education settings in England had been identified as having the collapse-risk concrete in their buildings. Of these, 94 were listed as secondary or all-through state schools, while 11 were post-16 colleges.
But Sir Ian said having confirmed Raac did not necessarily mean there had been “significant disruption” in a school or college as many had dealt with issues quite quickly.
“I would be surprised if there was an impact that was significant enough to impact results figures as a whole,” he said.
He was optimistic that universities “will be as flexible as they’re able to be” when deciding whether to accept a pupil if Raac disruption had been set out on their Ucas application form.
This year exam boards have offered extended coursework deadlines – up to 45 days – to schools and colleges which have struggled to access specialist facilities for non-examination assessments because of Raac.
The Joint Council for Qualifications (JCQ) has said “special consideration”, which is given to a candidate who has temporarily experienced illness, injury or some other event outside of their control, will not be granted to pupils who faced disruption over Raac.
But Sir Ian said schools will have been able to apply to exam boards under the existing special consideration process if pupils had to sit their exams in conditions which were “less favourable than normal”. These could include a darker, unheated, unventilated exam hall, or noisy building work during assessments.
Pepe Di’Iasio, general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders (ASCL), said: “Schools and colleges affected by Raac have worked extremely hard to support students whose studies have been disrupted by this issue, and they deserve an enormous amount of credit for all they have done.
‘Impact on performance’
“We don’t feel that they were adequately supported by the previous government in this task, and we are concerned about the potential impact on exam performance.”
A study by education experts at Durham University in January 2024 called for pupils in St Leonard’s and other similarly affected schools to be given “qualification outcomes equivalent to what would have happened in the absence of the crisis”.
Its authors, professors Stephen Gorard and Nadia Siddiqui, suggested the pupils’ exam grades could be fairly increased by up to 10 per cent this summer.
Prof Gorard said the exam cohort at St Leonard’s “lost time, lessons and access to teaching resources for a substantial period” because of Raac.
He said: “I still think as a one-off measure that cohorts in that school and the few like it deserve some extra consideration.
“Revised deadlines for coursework simply eat into the time available for other revision. And care by universities is unsystematic, and of course only applies to that subset planning to go to university.”
A DfE spokesman said: “High and rising school standards are at the heart of the Government’s mission to break down the barriers to opportunity and give every child the best start in life.
“We know that Raac was disruptive for school and colleges. Alongside Ofqual we have asked awarding organisations to agree longer extensions for coursework and non-exam assessment, where possible.
“The JCQ has also published further guidance on how established arrangements for special consideration may apply.”
