The head of Wales’ leading exam board is confident there will be “considerable stability” in this summer’s GCSE and A-level results, despite unions’ concerns around a core subject.
Gareth Pierce, chief executive of Cardiff-based WJEC, the biggest supplier of GCSEs and A-levels in Wales, does not foresee any “major variation” in overall outcomes compared to previous years.
Thursday's A-levels are expected to pass without incident but, given significant changes in the way GCSE English language is taught in Wales, Mr Pierce warned that next week some schools may not receive the results they had anticipated.
It follows a high-profile dispute involving unions and the Welsh Government over modular grades dished out to pupils in March. The results of GCSE English language tests sat in January caused uproar in some quarters, with teaching union ASCL Cymru reporting results skewed by as much as 30% on those predicted by teachers.
Mr Pierce said a “very substantial” change in subject specifications, introduced in the aftermath of the 2012 English language grading fiasco, had impacted on January’s scores and reaction to the sudden dip in outcomes was “justified”.
He said: “There were two kinds of change - there was an increased emphasis on language accuracy and the weighting on teacher assessment was lowered to 40%, rather than 60% of the total mark.
“The change was introduced very late, when pupils were already in the autumn term of Year 10, which meant the January series really came within 12 months of the change being implemented.
“One of the interesting things about the January series was that right up until results were published, nobody seemed particularly concerned. There was nothing said about changes to specifications, CPD (teacher training) events or question papers. Yet when results came out, the concerns were almost overwhelming. Results overall were down and some schools were very disappointed in the outcomes. The impact of the [contributing] factors didn’t really hit home until the results were published.”
Mr Pierce said there were three differences between the January and summer series of GCSE exams that were likely to iron out any potential issues.
Unlike in January, he said the summer series involved a full cohort of candidates (a majority of pupils did not sit the January exam); every unit was considered (work marked by teachers was not available previously); and exams were subject to the “comparable outcomes approach” – which ensures pupils are given equivalent grades from one year to the next.
“It means there will be considerable stability in the overall outcomes for Wales as a whole, however, there might still be some school variations compared to last year,” said Mr Pierce.
“This is as a result of how schools have adapted to the change. If they’ve been more dependent on doing well on the teacher assessment elements in the past, then the new specification perhaps becomes a bit more challenging.”
But Mr Pierce disputed claims that changes to qualifications make it difficult to compare Wales with the rest of the UK, with the vast majority of exams the same on both sides of Offa’s Dyke.
“In actual fact, right up until 2016 comparability is still very much the name of the game,” he said. “Our aim is still to see to it that all grades have the same currency. There is a standard process overseen by the regulators that has been applied across the A-level and GCSE series with stability of outcomes in mind.”