News20th August 2020
Students across the Ark network have received their GCSE and provisional BTEC grades today, in what has been a difficult and challenging year.
The Coronavirus pandemic meant that year 11 students were unable to sit their exams this summer – and recent confusion about how grades would be awarded without exams created concern for many of our young people.
In a last-minute change, students who took BTECs will have to wait for their final qualifications as these are now being re-graded by the exam board Pearson, to ensure the outcomes are fairly comparable to GCSEs.
Alison Downey, Principal of Ark Putney Academy, a secondary school in Wandsworth, said: “We are so proud of everybody. It has been such a difficult year, but everyone has been really resilient and risen to the challenge. All of our students have got the grades they really deserve.”
All Ark schools are ensuring that students have all the information available to take their next steps. Students will be given the grade their school thought they would get if they had taken the exam. This is called the Centre Assessed Grade (CAG). Almost all students’ final grade will be the same as their CAG, except in cases where the exam regulator Ofqual’s calculations would have given students a higher grade. No one will get a lower grade than their CAGs. All Ark students’ CAGs were based on our database of regular assessment outcomes and we followed a robust process to ensure all young people got the grades they deserved.
Staff are available to discuss grades and explain what they mean. Ark schools will do everything they can to help students go on to the post-16 placement of their choice.
We will be updating the below page throughout the day with GCSE success stories from across the network.
Ark students receive GCSE and BTEC results – Live
Photo: Reuters