‘We’ve become an exam centre’: Teachers struggle as new grading system and Covid catch-up sees workload spiral

‘Teachers are being forced to devote all their time and attention to being unpaid examiners,’ one school leader tells Zoe Tidman

Teachers will be setting GCSE and A-level grades this year (Getty Images/iStockphoto)

Teachers are being forced to work extra hours as they juggle a new system for determining GCSE and A-level grades with helping pupils catch up on learning after months away from the classroom, unions and school staff have warned.

While ministers have insisted this year’s system is putting “trust” in teachers, school staff and education unions said it left them facing a mountain of extra work, with one deputy headteacher telling The Independent they were having to devote all their time to being “unpaid examiners” instead of focusing on helping other year groups catch up on learning.

“We have become an exam centre,” Pete Bowdery, a teacher from Surrey, told The Independent. 

“We are setting exams, moderating, marking, moderating again, comparing to historical data, working out grade boundaries, all whilst trying to catch the other four year groups up after lockdown.”

He said he was waking up at 6am to get marking done before the school day – and then returning home to mark again.

Another teacher, who wished to stay anonymous, said she was unable to take time off marking recently despite feeling “wiped out” after a Covid-19 jab, due to all the A-level and GCSE papers she has to mark over the coming weeks.

“It is not quick to mark essays,” she told The Independent. “But then we have to moderate.” 

GCSE and A-level grades in England will be based on teacher judgements this year after exams were cancelled for the second year in a row due to disruption caused by the pandemic, which kept students at home during two national lockdowns and periods of self-isolation.

The system – developed after the exam grades algorithm controversy last year, which resulted in the Ofqual head’s resignation and a major government U-turn – is designed to mark students on the standard they are performing at, rather than their potential, and allows schools to use a wide range of evidence to back up judgements, including mock exams, exam-style questions and homework.

A recent survey suggested most schools will put the greatest emphasis on exam-style papers when determining grades this summer, while some said they would base results solely on papers set in exam-style conditions in classrooms or exam halls.

Jonathan Mountstevens, a deputy headteacher in Hertfordshire, told The Independent this year’s grading system was “imposing unreasonable demands” on teachers.

“As well as the significant workload, the high stakes nature of the activity, with students still in school and parents in frequent contact, causes a great deal of pressure and anxiety,” he said.

“In our efforts to make this summer’s results as fair as possible for students in years 11 and 13, it concerns me hugely that it has become impossible for teachers to do the job they would like to do for students in other year groups.

“This is a time when much could be done to support students whose education has been significantly disrupted, but instead teachers are being forced to devote all their time and attention to being unpaid examiners.”

A school leaders’ union official said avoiding the use of an algorithm is a step in the right direction, but the amount of work now facing teachers and school staff has not been given enough consideration.

“They want to ensure that their students are fairly awarded the grades they deserve, and the processes for awarding grades to students this summer are rightly rigorous, but there has been little recognition of the time staff need to implement them,” Sarah Hannafin, the NAHT’s senior policy advisor and assessment lead, said.

Geoff Barton from the Association for School and College Leaders (ASCL) said: “They only received detailed guidance at the end of last term on the process that needs to be followed and now have an extremely tight timetable in which to carry out and quality assure the assessments in order to submit grades to the exam boards by a deadline of 18 June.”

The union’s general secretary added: “It represents a great deal of work.” 

For Andy Byers, the Framwellgate School Durham headteacher, the system is “overly bureaucratic” and “places all of the work and responsibility on schools but somehow still ensures we pay the exam boards for the privilege”.

Meanwhile, Kieran McLaughlin, the Durham School headteacher, said: “The amount of admin required to produce one grade for one pupil is putting an intolerable burden on class teachers and middle management.” 

Teachers previously told The Independent they had doubts about the fairness of this year’s system – given the flexibility for schools to take different approaches to grading – and the potential for grade inflation.

Earlier this year, the education secretary said exam boards will carry out checks to “root out malpractice” and insisted teacher-assessed grades will be fair.

The government has said students should only been assessed on what they have been taught given the disruption to their education and schools will undertake internal checks and provided with guidance to ensure their process is “fair”.

Ofqual, England’s exam regulator, said: “Grades do not have to submitted until 18 June, allowing the focus to remain on teaching and learning and teachers to have as much time as possible to determine the grades for their students.”

A Department for Education spokesperson said: “Many of our policies have been designed with workload in mind which, with union support, we are seeking to minimise as much as possible. “

They added: “Teachers know their students best, which is why we are giving schools the flexibility to determine how best to assess their cohorts.”