Have your say: Do you agree with teachers deciding pupils' GCSE and A-level results?

Following last year’s exam results fiasco, the government has announced that teachers will be deciding pupils’ GCSE and A-level results in England this year.

Last summer, thousands of A-level students had their results downgraded from school estimates by a controversial algorithm before regulator Ofqual announced a U-turn which allowed them to use teachers’ predictions.

This year exam boards will provide teachers with optional assessment questions for students to answer to help schools decide which grades to award, after this summer’s exams were cancelled due to the pandemic.

Confirming the measure, Boris Johnson tweeted: “No child should be left behind as a result of learning lost during the pandemic. That’s why students will receive grades awarded and determined by teachers.

He added that the “fair and flexible system will ensure all young people can progress to the next stage of their education or career”.

Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland have already announced that exams will be replaced by teacher-assessed grades.

Schools minister Nick Gibb said exams remained the “fairest” way of evaluating pupil grades, but that disruption to education during the pandemic meant that was not possible this year.

He told Sky News: “Of course exams are the fairest and best system for judging attainment.

“But we can’t have exams this year because of the pandemic and because of the disruption that many students have faced up and down the country.

“It wouldn’t be fair to hold exams this year and we trust the professionals – teachers are the people who know their students best and we do trust their professionalism.”

Gibb said he was confident the “quality assurances” in place, both at a school level and exam board level, would result in fair results, with teachers to be given “guidance” about how to grade accurately from their relevant exam boards.

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However, Natalie Perera, chief executive of the Education Policy Institute (Epi) think-tank, said there was a “significant risk” schools will take vastly different approaches to grading.

She warned that large numbers of pupils could appeal their grades this year while the measure could see “extremely high grade inflation, which could be of little value to colleges, universities, employers and young people themselves”.

Gibb said grades would not have to be submitted until 18 June to give pupils more time to study following the disruption to their learning.

Read more: A-level and GCSE results will be issued earlier to allow more time for appeals

Watch: Williamson on exams: 'There's going to be no algorithms'