Gavin Williamson schools announcement: What did the Education Secretary’s say in speech today, Thursday, February 25?

GAVIN Williamson has revealed how students will be assessed and awarded their GCSE, AS and A levels this summer.

In a U-turn following 2020’s algorithm botch-up, the Education Secretary will teachers to assess and grade their pupils.

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Gavin Williamson says schools will be given wide flexibility when assessing pupils[/caption]

What time was Gavin Williamson’s announcement today?

Education Secretary Gavin Williamson addressed the House of Commons at 11.30am today, Thursday February 25.

What did Gavin Williamson announce?

Mr Williamson set out how the grades of hundreds of thousands of students in England are being awarded this summer.

The Education Secretary said: “This year’s students will receive grades determined by their teachers.”

GCSE and A-level results will be decided by the teachers – using a combination of mock exams, course work and essays.

Exam boards will release grade descriptions to help them award the correct mark.

But, there are concerns this will lead to extremely high grade inflation.

Students will only be assessed on what they have been taught.

Plus, schools will be given wide flexibility in deciding how teachers assess and grade their pupils, based on those parts of the curriculum they have learnt.

This includes:

• Essays
• In-class tests
• Coursework

No algorithm will be used.

Results will be published earlier than usual, with A-level grades published on August 10 and GCSE students receiving their results two days later on August 12.

Schools Minister Nick Gibb told Good Morning Britain today: “We’ve put in place measures to make sure the grades awarded are fair and consistent.

“We took the decision to cancel the exams in January because it would have been unfair to proceed with exams this year because of the disruption caused by the pandemic.

“The disruption is different for different pupils across the country, so the fairest system is to have those grades assessed by the teachers.

“The teachers are people who know their students best, they are professionals and on top of that we have quality assurance processes in place at the school level.

“Every grade will be signed off by the head teacher, and then they’re submitted to the exams board on the 18th of June, and there will be another quality assurance process, by the exams board, making sure [they are] fair.”