St Olave`s and an end to Pre-Us

Refusing year 13 places to pupils who have already twice proved their academic prowess is, quite simply, a disgrace (Weaker pupils "dumped" by top grammar, 30/08/17). If St Olave`s, and any other school adopting similar policies, cannot be bothered to try and raise grades from Cs in the mocks to Bs in the final A level examination, they cannot be doing their job properly. All of their students achieved brilliant results at GCSE, so offering them the opportunity for further examination success at A level is their educational duty! Many students go on to university without top A level grades, anyway, and maximise their potential in higher education.

     Having taught A level history for over 40 years in educational establishments where results mattered, but not at the expense of everything else, as apparently happens in "exam factories", one of the most satisfying aspects of the work was seeing students improving, often by more than one grade, in the second year of the course. When management is more "intent on topping the league table", than caring for the welfare of all of their pupils, criticism has to be directed at not only the individual schools, but the system. Having school league tables based only on examination results encourages such devious tactics as those used at St Olave`s.        The sooner this country has a government which insists its schools have the well-being of all pupils as their priority the better. Perhaps a think-tank could devise "a performance measure" based on that ("It was dreadful. There were children in tears", 3/08/17)?

It was interesting to see that the statement from the Diocese of Chichester on behalf of St Olave`s school said that the aim "as a school" is to "nurture boys who flourish and achieve their full potential academically", rather than, as in most schools, to nurture their pupils in order for them to maximise their achievement (Top grammar in U-turn over ditched pupils, 02/09/17). As some of your correspondents suggested, there can be little faith in the ability of staff to raise standards, which, of course, is what they should be concentrating on (Letters, 01/09/17).

      For once, the policy of "naming and shaming" has worked, and a school cheating the system has been forced to change policy, but the revelations about the examination-cheating public schools can only be shown to have a desired effect when the so-called Pre-U examinations are no longer viable as university entrance qualifications. With no limits to the proportion of students universities can enrol from private schools, only private sector pupils taking these examinations, and independent school staff, in many cases, actually writing the questions, the current post-16 assessment system is both unfair and flawed. 

    On the Pre-U website, Winchester College recommends these examinations, as they "are very liberating for teachers". Indeed! If the government really wants the "public to have confidence in the integrity of the exam system", as Nick Gibb says, it needs to ensure Ofqual advocates the use of ordinary A-levels in all schools.