This event is part of the School of Education's Bristol Conversations in Education research seminar series. These seminars are free and open to the public.

Hosted by: Centre for Multilevel Modelling (CMM)

Speaker: Dennis Sherwood, Independent Consultant and author of the 2022 book "Missing the Mark: Why so many exam grades are wrong, and how to get results we can trust"

On 2nd September 2020, the Parliamentary Education Select Committee convened a hearing to get to the bottom of the fiasco associated with the use of an algorithm to determine that summer’s GCSE and A level exam grades. In her evidence, Dame Glenys Stacey, the Chief Regulator of school exam watchdog Ofqual, admitted that exam grades “are reliable to one grade either way”. And Dame Glenys was not referring to the results of the algorithm, but to ‘real’ exam grades as awarded during the 2010s – and as awarded this summer too. That statement is worth thinking about. Especially if you happen to be a student who missed out on a place-of-your-dreams for want of a single grade; especially if you are involved with admissions, and say ‘yes’ to AAA, but ‘no’ to AAB. In fact, this statement is just one aspect of a scandal that has blighted the school exam system for many years, a scandal that will be explored at this seminar, at which Dennis Sherwood will present that evidence for just how unreliable current grades are, and also some solutions as to how to deliver grades that can be fully trusted.

The Great Grading Scandal