After a very challenging year, and particularly difficult A Level results week, Northern Star Academies Trust have said they are delighted that their GCSE students will be receiving Centre Assessed Grades and can plan for their future next steps.
CEO, Jenn Plews, said:
These GCSE results are a testament to our student’s hard work and perseverance over many years of education. Teachers in our schools followed a rigorous process, put in place by the exams regulator Ofqual, to arrive at the centre assessment grade. I would like to thank teachers and leaders for their professionalism, integrity, and extraordinary hard work.
GCSE results had to be awarded differently from usual, after exams were unable to go ahead due to Covid-19. Schools and colleges were asked to use their professional experience to make a fair and objective judgement of the grades they believed a student would have achieved had they sat their exams this year, and to submit these centre-assessed grades (CAGs) to the relevant subject exam board.
Across Skipton Girls’ High School and Harrogate High School, groups of teachers and leaders in each subject worked together to discuss and agree the centre-assessed grade for each student. They took into account a wide range of available evidence, including class work, mock exams and other records of student performance. The intention was that the exam boards would then moderate the CAGs, before providing students with their final calculated grades. After events of last week, the Government made the decision that GCSE and A level students would be awarded whichever was higher for each subject – their CAG or their calculated grade and this is the GCSE grade that students have been awarded on results day.
Charlotte Clarke, Academy Head at Harrogate High School said:
We are extremely proud of our Year 11 students and all that they have achieved during their time at Harrogate High School. This has been an incredibly challenging year for them, given the unprecedented circumstances of the Covid-19 pandemic and the disruption to their final GCSE year. Students have been courageous and resilient in their learning, attributes that will undoubtedly contribute to future success. It is important to recognise the excellent support from families and the dedication from our teaching and support staff, who work relentlessly to provide the highest standard of education and wellbeing support and who have been instrumental in raising student aspirations.
