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Cancelling 2021 GCSEs and A-levels may be ‘inevitable’ because of Covid disruption to schools, UK’s biggest teacher union warns

The National Education Union also said the Government should set up temporary 'Nightingale classrooms' in hotspots like Bolton and Newcastle

Cancelling next year’s A-level and GCSE exams “may become inevitable” if disruption to schools from coronavirus continues, the UK’s biggest teacher union has warned.

The National Education Union also said the Government should set up temporary “Nightingale classrooms” in Covid hotspots like Bolton and Newcastle to cut class sizes and break up networks of transmission.

The Government has said it will hold A-level and GCSE exams next summer, but the assessment watchdog Ofqual has so far proposed only minor changes to their format.

Mary Bousted, the joint general secretary of the NEU, said the proposals were “inadequate” and “increasingly untenable” given the scale of disruption which schools are experiencing, with exams heading for “another catastrophe next summer”.

Cancelling A-levels

Two influential university vice-chancellors, Sir David Eastwood of Birmingham University and Sir Chris Husbands of Sheffield Hallam University, have already called for A-levels in 2021 to be cancelled.

In an article for The Times, they said it would be better to “extend learning all the way through this academic year, until July”.

Speaking to journalists on Wednesday, Dr Bousted said: “I think that may be a situation that we have to move to… as the situation develops it may become inevitable that what we have to move to is a system of centre-assessed grades.”

The union said it had heard accounts from members of “whole Year 11s being sent home on public health advice”.

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‘Pointless’ Sats

As a minimum, Dr Bousted said teenagers should be given much greater “optionality” of what topics to answer questions on in their exams, with a “back up system” of moderated teacher assessed grades should the tests not be possible.

“Schools and colleges need to know what they need to collect now in order to provide evidence for their assessment of student achievement,” she said.

File photo dated 01/09/20 of pupils on the first day back to school at Charles Dickens Primary School in London. Almost nine in 10 pupils have attended schools in England since their full reopening this month, Government figures show. PA Photo. Issue date: Tuesday September 15, 2020. Around 92% of state schools were fully open on Thursday September 10, and approximately 88% of students were back in class on the same day, the Department for Education (DfE) analysis suggests. See PA story EDUCATION Attendance. Photo credit should read: Dominic Lipinski/PA Wire
Kevin Courtney, the NEU’s joint general secretary, told i that attempting to measure schools with Sats this year would be ‘absolutely pointless’ (Photo: Dominic Lipinski/PA Wire)

The NEU also said the Government should cancel primary school Sats tests. At a special conference on Saturday union members will vote on a motion to “call on headteachers and governors to refuse to require preparation for Sats”.

Kevin Courtney, the NEU’s joint general secretary, told i that attempting to measure schools with Sats this year would be “absolutely pointless”. “The patterns of closures, the number of cases who are at home at any one time, will be so variable between schools, there will be no judgment for schools that is meaningful,” he said.

Teachers should focus on keeping “as much learning going as possible”, but that meant “trying to pull back on this that aren’t necessary”, he added.

‘Nightingale classes’

The NEU has launched a website to allow parents to track the number of Covid cases in the area around their school.

Mr Courtney said that in hotspots like Bolton and Newcastle, temporary classrooms should be set up.

“We want to see smaller class sizes, especially in the areas where the cases are highest,” he said. “We’ve got Nightingale courts to deal with the backlog in the courts, we think we need Nightingale classes too.

“In Bolton and Newcastle, we are worried those schools are going to go to rota operation and we think that reducing class sizes in those areas is a better option.

“It would be a way of keeping more children in school by reducing transmission networks, instead of sending home whole year groups, whole bubbles, if we have smaller classes there are ways of reducing the number of children sent home.”

A Department for Education spokesperson said: “We expect exams to take place next year and continue to work with Ofqual and the exam boards on our approach, recognising that students will have experienced considerable disruption to their education in the last academic year.

“There are a range of measures proposed by Ofqual following a public consultation, including a possible short delay to the exam timetable and subject-specific changes to reduce pressure on teaching time. We will continue to work with school and college stakeholders, Ofqual and the exam boards, to ensure that exams in 2021 are fair.”

This story has been updated with a response from the Department for Education.

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