PUPILS whose education suffered in the pandemic will get more generous exam grades next year, we can reveal.
Education Secretary Gavin Williamson will unveil measures tomorrow to help kids at GCSE and A-level.
He will confirm exams will go ahead, despite this year’s marking fiasco — insisting that teens need goals to strive for.
But exam bosses will be ordered to grade more generously than usual to compensate “Generation Covid”, who have lost out on classroom time.
In the most extreme cases, youngsters who have missed vast chunks of teaching could be given special consideration.
They can apply to be treated like other pupils disadvantaged due to illness or unavoidable circumstances and their marks boosted.
Alarming statistics released yesterday reveal that one in five secondary school kids are self-isolating at home. Now exams will be delayed by three weeks for kids to catch up.
PUPILS ‘TREATED FAIRLY’
Teens are also expected to be told what topics will come up in their papers so they can focus their studies more. Different exam papers in the key subjects of English and maths will be held more than two weeks apart.
This is so that if a student misses one paper because they are self-isolating, their grade will be based on the paper they did sit.
Ministers are desperate to avoid another exams disaster after a botched algorithm sent this summer’s results into meltdown.
The Government had to tear up the results and dish out higher, teacher-predicted grades after an outcry.
Ofsted boss Amanda Spielman backed exams going ahead. She said: “Teenagers have put a lot of effort in already. They want to prove what they can do.
“They do also need to know they will be treated fairly and that they will have a really good shot at doing well in these exams.”
Scotland has cancelled its National 5s, its GCSE equivalent, but is going ahead with Highers.
Wales has cancelled its A Levels and GCSEs.
