For those of you who have fortunately managed to escape the mention of the current issue about the GSCE English re-grading vs. re-sitting examinations debate, this is basically what went down...
Those pupils who completed the English GCSE paper in June this year have achieved lower grades (though their mark equivalents are the same) than those who sat the paper in January. This is due to the examination boards across the UK having changed their grade boundaries between January and June, resulting in many students 'under-achieving' their target grades. This has created huge problems nationally, with the debate of whether or not the students should have the chance to re-sit their examinations in November, or whether their papers should simply be remarked in accordance with the previous grade boundaries.
That's just a simple overview of the topic.
Personally, I think it was foolish that there was no intervention at the time that these grade boundaries were altered, and we quite clearly need some legislation agreed to be put in place in order to discuss when the appropriate time to change grade boundaries are, and whether the exam boards should do so at all etc. Also, contrary to Michael Gove's opinion on the matter, the students should not need to re-sit the examinations - being a student myself I entirely empathise with those in this situation and understand that the pressure of yet ANOTHER set of exams is quite overwhelming.
Another thing to consider is that the Welsh WJEC examination board for English has indeed agreed to remark these papers in Wales, yet controversially those living in England whose schools also use the WJEC board will not have their exams remarked! Evidence for this can be found here at the BBC website - it's definitely worth a read! - http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-19567414
So it seems that opinions are definitely divided, especially within the parties themselves. We have Michael Gove on a national level disagreeing with re-grades, and Mike Whiting on a county level encouraging them with all his might! You can read the Kent Online's story featuring Mr Whiting (the County Councillor for Swale) here -http://www.kentonline.co.uk/kentonline/news/2012/september/11/gcse_survey.aspx
I hope that this has been a little insightful, and will spur on some discussion, as I am interested to hear any comments on the topic at all - nothing sounds better to me than a good debate!
I have linked to 2 articles in this post. 1 is from the BBC and the other is from Kent Online which I found on Mr Paul Francis' twitter page (you can find him on twitter using @PaulOnPolitics), therefore I obviously do not take any credit for those articles, just the stuff I've written on here myself.
As I said a moment ago, all comments are welcome, though it may take me a while to reply to any, and I hope you've enjoyed reading this so far!
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