‘The recent decision to force teachers to use the same pieces of evidence for all their students will do more harm than good’

• AS an A-level student, I am highly concerned by the government’s U-turn on exam results.

Previously schools could do a certain amount of cherry-picking collecting evidence for a student’s grade.

A portfolio of evidence could be artfully created from their best results from exams, classwork and the like, a fair adjustment considering how many hours have been lost since March 2020, especially by students such as those at my school, William Ellis, many of whom do not have easy access to a computer or a space to study.

The recent decision to force teachers to use the same pieces of evidence for all their students will do more harm than good.

Having promised us A-levels and GCSEs would not take place this year, and that teachers would be trusted to grade students, the government are now, in all but name, giving us exams with extra steps.

It seems like a cynical attempt to draft in teachers, who have already suffered much in this pandemic, as unpaid examiners.

The new plan also fails to take into account differences between individual students. What if a student were self-isolating on the day of a test that will now determine most of their final result?

The success in rolling out the vaccine lies mainly in the fact that the planning was handled by the NHS, the same organisation that was actually jabbing people, not by the cabinet.

We would do well to treat exams the same way. Teachers must be allowed to decide what is best for their students.

ALEX THORNE
Arlington Road, NW1