Fight over 'fixed' A-levels

Six top South-East schools are leading the fight over what they claim is a fix in this year's A-level results.

Their battle could result in legal action against the Oxford, Cambridge and RSA Board, alleged to have cut grades for thousands of pupils to avoid an embarrassing row over education standards.

The six schools - Eton, Harrow, Epsom College, King's College School Wimbledon, Mill Hill School and St Paul's Boys' School, are among more than 40 members of the Headmasters' and Headmistresses' Conference involved in the row.

The HMC is meeting senior officials from the OCR exam board on Thursday. If they fail to get a satisfactory explanation, the HMC says it will ask Education Secretary Estelle Morris to intervene.

If that fails, the possibility of legal action remains in a bid to correct the marking of exams which has led some sixth formers to miss out on university places. There are fears it would drag the Government into a dangerous debate over education standards, just when it is desperate for a period of calm over its controversial sixth form reforms, including the introduction of AS-levels.

The independent school heads made clear today that legal action against the exam boards could undermine the credibility of public exams.

This year's row was sparked after initial marking by the OCR board in particular - heavily used by independent schools - pointed to a massive increase in the proportion of A-grades awarded. In the event, there was a record number of A-grades this year, more than one in five of all entries.

But it appears that without intervention by senior examiners at OCR, the proportion would have been even higher, resulting in damaging charges of "grade inflation". The OCR board apparently ordered examiners to revise final grades to bring them more into line with previous years.

The result was that students who achieved top marks in early exam "modules" - or units - unaccountably received lower than expected grades overall, after marks for final units and coursework were included.

Last week, the board insisted that variations were the inevitable result of the new exam system. The board had acted in the normal way, awarding grades which reflected the same standard, year on year, it said.

But Ed Gould, headmaster at Marlborough and this year's chairman of the HMC, said it had accumulated evidence from "dozens" of schools of the way grades had been "fixed".

"We have countless examples of coursework where the marks we awarded to students were initially approved by the board, but where much lower than expected grades were subsequently awarded," he said. The OCR has confirmed a threefold-increase in the number of remarks demanded by schools this year, but Mr Gould said most were merely being confirmed.

"We will be seeking an explanation from the OCR this week of what has happened," Mr Gould said. "We want the grades originally awarded to our students to stand. "If we don't get a satisfactory explanation, the next step will be to go to the secretary of state and ask her to intervene."

Only if that failed would the HMC consider seeking a judicial review of the decisions of the exam boards.

The Government's exams watchdog, the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority, is already conducting an inquiry into the accusations of a "fix". But Mr Gould said: "If there has been any manipulation, the pressure might well have come from the QCA."

John Dunford, general secretary of the Secondary Heads Association, said: "If internal inquiries do not produce adequate answers, we need an independent inquiry."

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