Has the A-levels report restored confidence?

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The head of England's exams watchdog, Sir William Stubbs, has been sacked by the Education Secretary, Estelle Morris.

His removal from office came even though the Tomlinson inquiry into this summer's A-level grades concluded he had done nothing wrong.

The inquiry recommended that some entries may need to be re-graded.

The investigation, which was carried out by Mike Tomlinson - the former chief inspector of England's schools - also found little evidence of any political interference in the exam process.

The Education Secretary ordered the inquiry last week in response to complaints that exam boards were marking down grades after pressure from the exams watchdog.

Can confidence be restored in the A-level exams? Should Sir William Stubbs have been sacked?

You put your questions to Martin Ward, deputy general secretary of the Secondary Heads Association in a live interactive FORUM.

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Transcript

Newshost:
Hello, I'm Martin Popplewell, welcome to this BBC interactive forum which today is on A-levels. The much awaited inquiry into the A-level exam row has now been published. So now we know. No one - not Estelle Morris or William Stubbs from the exam and curriculum authority - did anything wrong but Ms Morris still decided Mr Stubbs had failed his test and sacked him and a number of A-levels are going to re-graded. So where on earth does this leave the A-level exam and does it have any credibility left?

Well to answer your e-mails we're joined by Martin Ward from the Secondary Heads Association. Thank you for coming in Mr Ward. First of all an e-mail from Sam Wren, England: "So why has Sir William Stubbs been sacked when the inquiry has shown he did nothing wrong?"

Martin Ward:
Well he's acted within his powers, is what the inquiry report says, and Sir William has interpreted that as meaning that he did nothing wrong. But I think really there's quite a lot of issues here that are the responsibility of the QCA which he was the chairman of throughout and which he was actually acting chief executive of at the time that most of these decisions were taken. So he had the right to do what he did but probably what he did do was to lean too heavily on the boards and certainly at least some of them felt that they were being threatened and put the grade boundaries up too high, essentially just to please him.

Newshost:
So did Estelle Morris do the right thing?

Martin Ward:
I think she probably did in the circumstances. I don't see how he could have carried on doing that job and had any sort of real confidence from the teaching profession and the heads and college principals and the examiners and of course, perhaps most importantly, from the students. So really I think he was bound to go after this report came out and of course the events of this week made that even more likely I think.

Newshost:
We've got an e-mail here from Jacob Busby in Southampton: "Do you think having separate examination boards encourages each of them to supply slightly easier exams than the others as schools are interested in improving their pass rates?"

Martin Ward:
No I don't think so actually. The three boards in this case did act slightly differently but I think that was really to do with the personalities of the chief executives concerned and just how much they felt able to withstand what they obviously regarded as pressure from the QCA. So no I don't think that they compete with one another to lower the standard. If anything they might compete with one another to raise the standard so that if they had a noticeably more demanding set of exams then, in a sense, people would want those - they'd say - oh yes I got my A-level from such and such board and that's better isn't it. So I think on the whole the competition would have the effect of raising the standards. Now I think there are other reasons why we might not need three separate boards but I don't think that that in itself is lowering the standard.

Newshost:
Yes say that, I remember when I sat O Level English, showing how old I am perhaps now, I was told that it would be much to do one board because you'd be more likely to pass it and at the end of the day no one really gives two hoots as to whether you've done one particular board or another what matters is whether you've got an A, B or C and if you had one exam board it would make it easier surely to have a uniform standard?

Martin Ward:
Yes it probably would make it easier. In those days, in the days when you and I did O Levels and I did O levels too, the board actually did have different standings and it actually was more worthwhile to have a grade from one rather than another. I think in recent years, since we've had just these three boards - because we used to have a lot more - then the standard has been pretty consistent between them.

Newshost:
Ok, let's move on to another e-mail from Nerys in the UK: "When I took my A-levels not one student in my business studies A-level achieved a grade higher than a C. I can't believe we're all stupid, in fact individually I asked for my exam to be re-marked and my grade went up. Do you think this has been going on for years?"

Martin Ward:
I think it probably has to some extent and certainly we've got a number of cases that have come in from students who've taken their A-levels in the last two or three years and who feel that they have suffered in the same sort of way that many more students have suffered from this year. Now Nerys didn't tell us how long ago she did her A-levels but if it was in the last two or three years it may have been something of the same effect.

Newshost:
We've got an e-mail from John: "Do you think many people appear to be missing the point? Is it not the adjustment of the marks that's in question but the extent to which they're adjusted? If A grade students suddenly receive a U grade (a fail) for their course work it's almost certain that their marks have been unfairly decimated which rubbishes any "normal distribution" arguments being put here."

Martin Ward:
Yes that's right and that's exactly what alerted us, as the Heads Association, to realise just how serious this problem was because the odd student in that situation is not impossible - somebody just gets in a muddle, does entirely the wrong thing or has a bad day in an exam. But when you've got whole classes full of students in a similar situation then that really says something has gone badly wrong. And that's what we've been saying throughout and that's what Mike Tomlinson has now agreed.

Newshost:
Final question from Patrick Watson who e-mails us from London: "The Government's aim is to have 50 per cent of pupils going on to higher education. Given that in 1980 just seven per cent went on to higher education isn't the dumbing down of A-levels and political interference a logical and inevitable outcome of this government target?"

Martin Ward:
No it isn't and that isn't what's going on here at all. The A-level standard is much as it has ever been. I did A-levels 33 years ago and I got some pretty good results and one of my sons did A-levels this year, after all those years, and he got, as it happens, grades almost exactly the same as mine and we're both just about equally clever and we both worked pretty hard to do our A-levels. I don't think the standard's changed very much at all. I think what's actually happened this year, in particular, is that the new system that we've put into place, that this is the first run through, has just worked better - students actually have worked harder and they've achieved more - and they deserve to get the grades that they've worked for.

Newshost:
Martin Ward from the Secondary Heads Association we've actually run out of time but thank you very much indeed for joining us. As I say that's all we've got time for. You've been watching a BBC interactive forum, my name's Martin Popplewell, goodbye.