Carol Nolan Probes Calculated Grades, Appeals and Tutor Students
Carol Nolan addressed the calculated grades system, questioning the number and handling of appeals and the impact on students who studied subjects outside school. She described the system as imperfect but noted it did not appear to disproportionately affect disadvantaged children and pressed for clarity on outstanding reviews.
Appeals numbers and scope
The staged appeals process has reached stage three after stages one and two were concluded. Around 12,000 students applied for a review covering about 33,000 subject results in a technical, process-based appeal focused on data transmission. Teacher professional judgment and the statistical standardisation process were outside the scope of the appeals. Stage one and two processing led to 18 upgrades; approximately 400 students have requested stage three independent scrutiny for about 900 grades and that review is ongoing with timing still uncertain.
Students taught outside school
Officials said every effort was made to provide calculated grades for students taking subjects with tutors or outside school, but verification was often impossible without a registered teacher overseeing the work. Litigation resolved some cases, but for fully out-of-school learners 173 could not be given calculated grades in any entered subjects, 21 were part-approved or part-refused, 51 opted out, and about 135 did not engage despite repeated contact. Of the roughly 2,800 students scheduled to sit exams next week, about 200 had studied some or all subjects outside school.
Anxiety and timing of decisions
Nolan highlighted that late decisions and late proposals about how to handle tutor-taught or out-of-school students caused significant anxiety and uncertainty for pupils. She said earlier clarity on who would enter the calculated grades process might have reduced stress and allowed students to adjust sooner.
Next steps and communication
Stage three referrals are being processed by independent appeal scrutineers through the calculated grades executive office. Officials said they will alert students as soon as outcomes or timelines are known and that they have exhausted available procedures to engage with affected students.
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I would like to thank you both, all of you, for your presentations. I just want to begin by saying that the calculated grade system was far from ideal, but we were in far from ideal circumstances. I do acknowledge the fact that it did not disproportionately affect disadvantaged children, which I would have been concerned about, because we were hearing reports from England and indeed their system where children from a disadvantaged background were adversely impacted upon. So it is good to see that that did not happen. But I have a number of questions. One of them relates to the number of appeals. I know you have said that there are appeals outstanding and because of the appeals outstanding, there may be a delay in terms of the review coming to light. I would like to know how many appeals at this stage are outstanding and what efforts are being made to resolve those as soon as possible. And my next question relates to, there was a number of students, students in my own constituency, who studied subjects outside of school with a tutor. And I'm just wondering, I mean, the decision regarding those students was very late in the day. And indeed, you know, proposals to deal with this situation came late, and again, caused a lot of anxiety. And you know, the uncertainty of the whole lot caused, I think, most of the anxiety for the students, if they knew they were going to be going through the calculated grades process sooner, maybe they would have had adjusted sooner and come to an acceptance. But it did cause anxiety. But it did cause anxiety. And I'm just wondering, in terms of those students who studied outside of the schools, are there many of those affected in terms of appeals, in terms of downgrading? What way is it and what methods were used to ensure that those students got treated fairly in the calculated grade system? Thank you. Thank you. Okay, thanks. Thanks, Deputy. I'm going to pass this to Ms. Zaini in a moment. Just on the subjects and the students studying maybe additional subjects or two outside of school, we did make absolutely every effort to, if we could at all, give them a calculated grade. And there were a number of routes through which they could do that. Unfortunately, it was not possible in every single situation. Usually the stumbling block was because the student in question may not have had a registered teacher involved in overseeing their education, and therefore there was just no means of verifying the work that they had done. We obviously had some litigation around that too, and we resolved some cases as a result of the litigation as well. So maybe if I just pass to Ms. Zaini just on the numbers and on the appeals, please. Yes. So just in relation to the appeals and how many appeals are outstanding, we're at stage three of a three-stage appeal process at the moment. So stage one and two have already been concluded. We had 12,000 students that made an application for a review of about 33,000 results, and it was a technical appeal, so a process-based appeal looking at issues with the transmission of the data through the process and checking all of the points of data transfer. The professional judgment of the teachers was outside of the scope of the appeal process. So if a student did feel that a teacher had underestimated their performance, they couldn't access that through the appeal process. That was part of the compact, if you like, with teachers in agreeing to engage in the calculated grades process to begin with. The statistical standardisation process was also outside of the scope of the appeals process. As a result of the appeals, the processing of the stage one and the stage two appeals process, there were 18 upgrades. So from those 33,000 individual subjects, there were 18 upgrades. There is a stage three appeals process, which is for a referral of the procedures that were undertaken by the calculated grades executive office in the processing of the appeals to independent independent scrutiny, to independent appeal scrutineers, and approximately 400 of the 12,000 students have undertaken that option and have made an application for further review against 900 of their grades. So that process is underway at the moment. We just can't say at the moment how long that's going to take. And again, each state of this has been new. So it's just a little bit uncertain as to how long the process we're going to take. It will take as soon as we know we'll alert students to that. In terms of students who are studying subjects outside of school, either with a tutor or completely on their own. So taking all of their subjects outside of school or taking one subject. And my colleague Dalton has already referred to the fact that every effort was made to accommodate those students within the process. As a result of our processing for the students that were totally out of school learners, we had 173 of those where we couldn't provide them with calculated grades in any of the subjects in which they were entered. We had 21 where they were part approved or part refused. We had 51 students who didn't want to get calculated grades, so opted out of the process. And there was about 135 that we contacted on a repeated basis over the summer about their application and where we had no engagement in return. And it's interesting that of the 2,800 students that are going to sit examinations starting next Monday, about 200 of those are in that category where they were studying. All of all are some of their subjects outside of school. So they have returned, if you like, for the November exams piece. There is there's none of their appeals ongoing at this stage. We have gone through as many procedures as we can with them. We've looked for every opportunity that we could to engage with them to make sure that they were aware of the process. But ultimately, for reasons of intercandidate equity and making sure that we were treating other students fairly, we had to have a basis on which we could ground a calculated grade. There had to be some evidence available to us in order that we could then look at running that information through the estimation process. I hope that answers your question. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
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