Fee-paying school pupils 'given preferential grades'

Pupils at Britain's most prestigious private schools may have been awarded better exam results than they deserved because examiners were "overly impressed" by their schools' reputations, a senior examiner from Britain's largest exam board has claimed.

Pupils at Britain's most prestigious private schools may have been awarded better exam results than they deserved because examiners were "overly impressed" by their schools' reputations, a senior examiner from Britain's largest exam board has claimed.

Private school students were also "over-taught" and may be less able to think for themselves, the examiner for the AQA board said.

Independent school leaders reacted furiously, saying that for a senior examiner to express such views was unacceptable. The comments were made at an official appeal as part of a dispute between the exam board, and the £23,337-a-year Cheltenham Ladies' College.

The AQA examiner, Natalie Moss, told the Examination Appeals Board (EAB) that the school may have received better grades than it deserved. She also suggested its candidates were "over-taught" and were not good enough at providing an "informed personal response" to get the highest marks.

The college complained that its English literature GCSE results fell in the 2003 exams. The school appealed to the exam board which upgraded 44 of the 112 candidates after a re-mark. The school said other candidates should also have been given higher grades and appealed to the EAB.

Mrs Moss, an AQA examiner for GCSE English literature, told the hearing that scripts now contained no indication of what type of school the candidate attended, so elite schools should not be surprised if their results dropped as reforms eliminated historic unfairness.

The EAB's report of the hearing said: "AQA suggested two possible scenarios to explain the discrepancy in the college's results. First, it noted that in previous years markers were aware of the identity of the centre they were marking. It was possible that some markers had been overly impressed by the reputation of the centre and had enhanced their expectations of its results.

"Second, AQA considered it possible that the candidates had been over-taught. AQA explained that in the past it had been easier to get higher marks in English literature than in English but this was no longer so. AQA considered that the degree of personal response now required had in some instances been missing from the top-range candidates from the college."

Vicky Tuck, principal of the Cheltenham college, said she was "astonished and outraged" by the comments which she said showed an underlying prejudice against independent schools. "There is a general concern among all schools, both maintained and independent, about how much we can trust the marking procedures."

Mrs Tuck said the errors had been "a very serious matter" which had probably resulted in some able girls abandoning plans to study English into the sixth form because it had taken a year to resolve the problems.

An AQA spokeswoman said the views were the examiner's own and did not represent those of the board.Mrs Moss is still an examiner but is no longer the English literature principal.