I’ve been a school governor for an alarmingly long time – the last 10 years at a Cottenham Village College, now an Academy. This apparently makes me more qualified than anybody in Government to see how ridiculous their claims about “grade inflation” are.
Every school, under several shades of Government, has to produce monstrous amounts of documentation: policies, plans, guidance, self-assessments, declarations, statements of ethos, etc, etc.
Chief amongst these for many years has been the School Improvement Plan. This has to show how the grades achieved by the pupils would be better next year than last year. If a school did not achieve this improvement, then it would be classed “failing” with promised terrible consequences for all.
Can anyone see yet why the accusation of “grade inflation” is completely hypocritical? Yes, Gove – at the back there, boy!
And now there will be the “English Baccalaureate Certificate”. Has he even looked that word up in the dictionary? In English it means a University Degree (Bachelor of Arts, or Bachelor of Science).
‘Grade inflation’ ignores many issues that children could face in academics; does not make sense at all.