UK coronavirus: students get GCSE results as BTecs are delayed – live news

Gibb also confirmed that concerns the algorithm used to determine grades could impact poorer pupils were expressed to him. While he said he decided to hold a meeting to discuss them, a plan ministers now admit was seriously flawed went ahead.

Asked about reports in the Times that suggested Sir Jon Coles – a former director-general at the Department for Education – wrote to Williamson early last month to express concerns about the algorithm used by Ofqual, Gibb told Today:

He spoke to me about it and he was concerned about the model and he was concerned that it would disadvantage particularly children from poorer backgrounds. And so I called a meeting therefore with the independent regulator, with Ofqual, to discuss in detail those very concerns.

Gibb has been seeking to defend the model used this morning; distinguishing it from the algorithm used to apply it.

The threat to Gavin Willamson’s position is not abating.

The Scottish Tory leader, Douglas Ross, has refused to give him his backing, saying he should “reflect on what happened”.

Ross, who had called for the Scottish education secretary John Swinney to lose his job after his own exams U-turn, suggested the English minister should have taken action quicker once the problems in Scotland became apparent. He has told BBC Radio Scotland:

I think Gavin Williamson and the government and the Department for Education will be reflecting on why did they not see the problem that the SNP had to deal with as a result of their actions in Scotland.

Asked whether Williamson should quit, Ross said:

That is a decision for Gavin Williamson. It’s a decision for the prime minister, if he continues to have the trust of the prime minister.

I’m not here to say in your report that I think Gavin Williamson has done a great job and he should continue. I think he has to reflect on what happened to so many pupils in England, students who were concerned for four days, because we had the exact same up here in Scotland for a week.

Gibb’s claim that ministers believed the BTecs would not need to be changed does not entirely hold water because it relies on his assertion that they were already to be based entirely on a system similar to that ultimately used to calculate A-levels: teacher-assessed grades.

The schools minister told Today:

These BTecs are not affected by the same standardisation process as GCSEs and A-levels … they are based on marks by coursework of the teachers … and that’s why we didn’t feel you needed to make adjustments initially to the BTecs because they were based on teacher assessment. And that is where we had moved GCSEs and A-levels.

But the feedback that Pearsons have been receiving since Monday was that, given that there was going to be an uplift in the grades of GCSEs and A-level, it was only fair that there was some form of uplift on the BTec qualifications.

While the exam board confirmed last night that the BTecs were largely to be awarded on that basis, it said there was actually to be some standardisation based on past performance.

Although we generally accepted centre-assessment grades for internal (ie coursework) units, we subsequently calculated the grades for the examined units using historical performance data with a view of maintaining overall outcomes over time.

Our review will remove these Pearson calculated grades and apply consistency across teacher assessed internal grades and examined grades that students were unable to sit.

Gibb has said no change to the Btecs was envisaged before last night because they were already teacher-assessed and were therefore thought to be inherently in line with the amended method of calculating A-levels, to which they are equivalent.

But he has told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme that the exam board decided it needed to look again at the results because the A-levels U-turn had resulted in an uplift in grades that could mean Btec students would now be disadvantaged.

Referring to reports that Ofqual was warned at least a month ago of flaws in the exams algorithm, the shadow education secretary Kate Green has said:

Gavin Williamson was warned again and again about the problems with the grading algorithm, and each time, he did nothing.

This endless pattern of incompetence is no way to run a country. His failure to listen to warnings and to act on them risked thousands of young people being robbed of their futures.

It is time for full transparency. The Department for Education must now publish all correspondence to and from the secretary of state in which concerns about this algorithm were discussed, as a matter of urgency.

Young people deserve to know how they came to be let down so badly.

Gibb apologised to GCSE and A-level students for the “pain and the anxiety” they felt prior to this week’s exam grading U-turn. He has told BBC Breakfast in a separate interview:

To those hundreds of thousands of young people receiving their GCSE grades and the A-level students receiving recalculated grades, I will say this to them, congratulations on what you have achieved.

But also how sorry I am for the pain, the anxiety and the uncertainty that they will have suffered as a consequence of the grading issues we encountered last week. And to reassure them that we are doing everything we can to put these matters right.

Announcing the changes to the A-level calculations earlier this week, the education secretary Gavin Williamson said:

It became apparent over the weekend that we needed to do more and I made the recommendation that we move to centre-assessed grades. I’m not going to sit by and see injustices done, I’m going to take action. That’s what I did. That’s what I’ve done today; it’s the right thing to do.

In other interviews on Tuesday, Williamson said there were “large numbers of youngsters … [who] wanted to see action taken, that’s what I’ve done”. A statement from the Department for Education later acknowledged that it was Ofqual that had taken the decision to shift to predicted grades, not Williamson.

Gibb insisted that Williamson had not been trying to take credit for the decision, telling Sky News:

What he was saying is that he recommended to government the decision of the regulator.

The schools minister Nick Gibb has admitted he cannot give a firm date for the release of BTec results, saying that they will “hopefully” be out next week. He has told Sky News:

‘As soon as possible’ is what the exam board has said and I anticipate that that will be next week.

He said claims he had been more interested in avoiding grade inflation than in devising a truly fair system were untrue.

Good morning and welcome to the Guardian’s live coverage.

It’s exam results day. Or, at least, it’s supposed to be.

But, for many thousands of students pursuing vocational qualifications in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, it’s another day of chaos and confusion after the examinations board Pearson announced another last-minute U-turn only hours before results were supposed to be released.

It said yesterday evening that it had decided to change to the way the BTec results are decided and base the final results on internal assessments and marks. While that means many people could be awarded higher grades amid concerns the original plans were disadvantaging the brightest students, it also means they will not be ready for today.

It is just the latest debacle linked to the plans to replace examinations cancelled because of the coronavirus pandemic and comes only days after the embarrassing A-level results fiasco, over which there have been calls for the education secretary Gavin Williamson to resign.

Labour said it was “appalling that thousands of young people should face further confusion and uncertainty” and demanded that Williamson set a deadline for the release of results.

Many GCSE students, however, will be getting their grades today after it was decided earlier in the week that – like A-levels – they too should now be awarded based on grades predicted by teachers.

As a result, disadvantaged pupils will be the biggest winners from Thursday’s GCSEs results in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, with more likely to gain good passes and see a narrowing in their attainment gap with better-off children.