{"id":8122,"date":"2017-08-17T11:03:01","date_gmt":"2017-08-17T10:03:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/education-today.co.uk\/?p=8122"},"modified":"2017-08-17T11:03:42","modified_gmt":"2017-08-17T10:03:42","slug":"school-leaders-advise-caution-when-interpreting-this-years-as-and-a-level-results","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/education-today.co.uk\/school-leaders-advise-caution-when-interpreting-this-years-as-and-a-level-results\/","title":{"rendered":"School leaders advise caution when interpreting this year\u2019s AS and A-Level results"},"content":{"rendered":"

As A-level students receive their results today, school leaders are advising caution when interpreting this year’s results.<\/span><\/p>\n

According to Paul Whiteman, general secretary of school leaders’ union NAHT: <\/span>\u201cToday is\u00a0the day when thousands of young people and their families will be hoping that their hard work has paid off. NAHT congratulates everyone receiving their results today. Their emotions will be felt just as much by the school leaders and their teams, who have worked\u00a0with them throughout the year. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cAcross all subjects the proportion of A* and A grades has increased, but in the 13 reformed subjects these outcomes went down. Male students also seem to be closing the attainment gap in the reformed specifications and questions must be asked about why this might be if this continues and\u00a0more reformed subjects are introduced; perhaps the linear design of the new A levels is better suited to their learning style. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201c2017 has been another year of change for school examinations and we have several more years to go before the programme of reforms is complete. We\u2019ve seen AS Level entries fall dramatically because these exams no longer count towards a full A Level. And in many subjects at A Level students\u2019 grades are now entirely dependent on exams at the end of the course. Although nationally A level results appear fairly stable, at school level there will be volatility.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe important thing, in this period of change, is that everyone with an eye on schools results exercises caution when comparing this year\u2019s data with previous years. It is not a like for like comparison. The context of schools results is complex so any direct comparisons with previous years\u2019 results are unreliable.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cNational examinations will never be able to capture all aspects of a student\u2019s progress or all the different ways in which a school contributes to the progress that a student makes. This is why NAHT believes that it is entirely wrong to hold schools to account based on data alone.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cFor now, we should celebrate the individual successes of this year\u2019s students and remember to support the pupils who have not got the grades they were hoping for.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As A-level students receive their results today, school leaders are advising caution when interpreting this year’s results. According to Paul Whiteman, general secretary of school leaders’ union NAHT: \u201cToday is\u00a0the day when thousands of young people and their families will be hoping that their hard work has paid off. NAHT congratulates everyone receiving their results …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":7829,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[55],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8122","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","","category-a-levels"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/education-today.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8122","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/education-today.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/education-today.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/education-today.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/education-today.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8122"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/education-today.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8122\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8123,"href":"https:\/\/education-today.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8122\/revisions\/8123"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/education-today.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7829"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/education-today.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8122"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/education-today.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8122"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/education-today.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8122"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}