45,000 to resit English GCSEs after marking debacle

Around one in 14 students – more than 45,000 in total – who took the qualification in the summer have opted to re-take exams.

Thousands of students received lower than expected results in GCSE English after grade boundaries were raised between the January and June exam sessions

Following an investigation by the exams regulator Ofqual, they were given the opportunity to retake all, or part of their exam in November after complaints that the June exam results had been subject to tougher marking.

What this shows is that it is a gross injustice that this vast number of students are being subjected to go through a resit when the fact is this is not their fault. Brian Lightman, ASCL general secretary

However headteachers say that the pupils who were affected should not have to resit as the problems were not of their making, and are calling for this summer’s GCSE English papers to be re-graded.

Brian Lightman, general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders (ASCL), said that resits were not the solution: “What this shows is that it is a gross injustice that this vast number of students are being subjected to go through a resit when the fact is this is not their fault.”

He added that the numbers re-taking all, or part of the course, are “higher than expected, and shows the extent of the problem”.

The figures given to the BBC came as an alliance of schools, pupils, professional bodies and councils announced they will submit a legal challenge over the debacle to the High Court in the next week.

Read more Q+A: How am I affected by the GCSE English row?

Exam boards

Figures from four exam boards, AQA, Edexcel, OCR and WJEC, show that over 45,000 candidates have opted to take part in the November resit.

Of these, the majority, around 32,000, are candidates with the AQA board. This is because AQA has a high number of GCSE English students, with 380,000 sitting the qualification in the summer.

Both OCR and Edexcel each have around 4,300 candidates taking part in the resit, and WJEC, the Welsh exam board, has around 4,700.

It is not currently known how this compares to resits in other years. Figures for the January exam session, when pupils usually take resits, normally include students taking resits and those who are sitting the exam for the first time.

Read more from Social Affairs Editor Jackie Long: GCSE English and the great Welsh regrades

Legal challenge

On Wednesday, a spokesman for the education alliance calling for a re-grading of this summer’s exam, said that, following a meeting of legal representatives, it was decided that a claim for a judicial review will be put forward.

“We have now thoroughly examined the case that we have and we are convinced of the merits of our case, and the expectation that we will have a success to get the outcome we want – which is a re-grade for students,” he said. “We will be putting our claim together and submitting it over the next week.”

The announcement came almost a week after Ofqual responded to a pre-action letter sent by the alliance, vowing to “rigorously defend” its decisions over this summer’s GCSE English results.