Judge rules Morley students will not have GCSEs regraded
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Morley students who missed out on a grade C in GCSE English because of last summer’s grading fiasco will not have their papers regraded, a judge has ruled today.
Following a three-day court hearing in December, Lord Justice Elias today ruled Ofqual had done the best it could with a qualification which was structured unfairly and, though the alliance was right to bring the case, grades would not be revised.
The judicial review was brought before the courts by an unprecedented educational alliance, which was drawn together because of what councils and schools believed were injustices in last summer’s marking. The shift in boundaries last summer meant pupils who sat GCSE English in the summer needed more marks to get a C than those who did the exam in January.
The Morley Academy, Woodkirk Academy and Bruntcliffe School were among those who were hoping to have students grades remarked.
Coun Judith Blake, deputy leader of Leeds City Council with responsibility for children’s services said: “I am bitterly disappointed in this judgement. Thousands of young people’s futures have been badly affected by this and now it seems their plight has been ignored.
“Although Lord Justice Elias acknowledged that we were right to raise the judicial review, we feel it is totally unreasonable to blame the modular system for these unfair results.
“Our legal challenge was thorough and showed clearly the unfairness of the exam boards’ decision to change the GCSE grade boundaries mid-year and the devastating impact this has had on thousands of young people across the country. “It is, therefore, totally unsatisfactory that this has been ignored and the young people will not be granted the results they worked hard to achieve and would have achieved had their exams been graded, like many thousands of other students, earlier in the year or in the previous year.
“Many young people have already missed out on apprenticeships and college courses, and have been forced into making decisions about their education and future because of this mistake.
“We were only able to get to this stage because of the collaboration between students themselves and their families, head teachers, local authorities and professional bodies across the country who decided to stand up for the young people who have been treated so unfairly. So it is especially disappointing that the result is not what we had hoped for.
“We will now be seeking legal advice and discussing with the other members of the consortium whether we will appeal against this decision.”
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Weather for Leeds,Yorkshire
Wednesday 19 June 2013
Today
Sunny spells
Temperature: 10 C to 22 C
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