THE HEADTEACHER of a west Suffolk school will today confront exam regulators to demand answers over the controversial marking of this summer’s GCSE papers.
Geoff Barton, of King Edward VI School in Bury St Edmunds, has been invited to join Brian Lightman, General Secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, for a meeting in Coventry with the senior team at Ofqual.
Mr Barton has repeatedly questioned the shift in grade boundaries for June’s exams that resulted in tens of thousands of students receiving lower than expected grades.
He said he will be calling for “swift action to support students whose college places may be in jeopardy and to support schools whose reputations are being damaged by the incompetence of examination board bureaucrats.”
Mr Barton added: “First, I will be asking for a guarantee that this won’t happen again, because the people who made the mistake have learnt or left. Secondly, and most importantly, I will be asking that grade boundaries from January should be applied to June to make sure people get the grades they deserve.”
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