Teachers’ GCSE grades will count at Lord Bill’s

FOLLOWING the A Level results fiasco, the Headteacher of Lord Williams’s School in Thame, has written to all students, carers and parents of Year 11 (the letter was written before today’s government announcement both A Levels and GCSE results will now be based on teacher assessments, unless that previously awarded to students is higher):

Dear Year 11 Students and Parents/Carers

As I am sure you know, there has been a great deal of controversy and upset over the awarding of A-Level grades last week. We do not know how the process of awarding GCSE grades will affect our students, but it seems likely that there will be significant changes to the Centre Assessed Grades that were submitted in good faith by teachers and signed off by Subject Leaders.

We will be sending you the awarded results as soon as we are able to on Thursday morning. We will then send you the Centre Assessed Grades soon after.

We will rely on the Centre Assessed Grades in making decisions about entry to Sixth Form courses at Lord Williams’s School. Even if the grades are moderated down by the awarding process, we will stand by the grades that our teachers have submitted, as we feel these reflect the grades that students truly deserve.

I hope this offers some reassurance at a very stressful time.

In the case of English and Mathematics, any student awarded a grade below a 4 will be required to re-sit the relevant examination, even if the Centre Assessed Grade was a 4 or higher. This is necessary to ensure that students have access to College, University and Higher Apprenticeships in the future.

Students who have applications to College or an Apprenticeship will be able to communicate their Centre Assessed Grades to their future provider to support their application for admission, if the awarded grades are lower than those required for automatic entry. Unfortunately, I cannot guarantee that any other institution will follow our approach of accepting the Centre Assessed Grades as a valid indication of a student’s achievement.

Yours
Jon Ryder
Headteacher