Alastair Stewart

We’ve failed the class of 2020

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Much of the coverage of today’s exam results is dominated by disappointed Jacks and furious Jills. Determined parents are planning legal action against predicted grades which they say are inaccurate, unfair and result from a Government/Ofqual safety net that is not fit for purpose. While good state schools and many big-name private schools have done well, sixth form colleges have had a torrid time of it. Worst of all, individual candidates are having their predicted grades policed, statistically, by the historic average performance of their schools. It leaves the exceptional pupil, who burst a blood vessel or two to succeed, being down-graded. ‘You can’t have done that well because no one else has ever done that well!’ It is a criminal example of the madness of the average operating at the expense of the exceptional.

On the upside, there are many children who have done as well as they were expected to, and a number who have done even better than they dared dream they might: top grades are up, again.

Universities, suffering from under-subscription not least from overseas students, say they will offer the generous hand of help; generous it will be because, as the BBC’s education editor Branwen Jeffreys observes, higher education has become a buyer’s market. Clearing will be a busy place and may hold even more hope this year than in recent times.

To disappointed candidates, and their parents, it will feel like a catastrophe. In the context of a lifetime of three score years and ten, however, it is only a fleeting moment. In years to come, most of these young folk won’t even remember the grades they got, let alone those they felt they should have got. Few will have endured a truly life-limiting set-back and talk of ‘a lost generation’ is as cruel as it is foolish.

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