A prestigious London private school has faced multiple investigations into the way it awarded exam grades in 2021, when all its A-level entries were awarded A* or A, The Guardian has learned.
Leaders and senior teachers at North London Collegiate School (NLCS) have been investigated for alleged malpractice in setting teacher-assessed grades, which replaced formal exams canceled by the government due to the Covid pandemic.
Sources at the £22,000-a-year girls’ school said more than 20 cases relating to NLCS had been referred to malpractice committees convened by A-level exam boards, which held a series of confidential hearings this month.
While some of the allegations of malpractice have been dismissed, others have been upheld by the committees. The findings of the hearings are not publicly available and the committee’s deliberations are confidential.
A spokesman for Pearson, the exam board involved in the investigations, said: “We take allegations of malpractice very seriously and investigate every one that comes to us. When malpractice is detected, we have systems in place to ensure, in as far as possible, that appropriate sanctions are taken based on the evidence. We cannot comment on individual cases.”
The school declined to say how many NLCS-related malpractice investigations or hearings have taken place.
An NLCS spokesman said: “The process and findings of these investigations are confidential between the review board and the parties. However, we can confirm that there has been no finding of [school] malpractice by NLCS.”
The NLCS spokesman later added: “We can confirm that the investigation has concluded.”
The revelations will reignite controversy over the record number of top grades awarded by independent schools in 2021, with the proportion of A*s up almost 150% on 2019, when the last formal exams were held.
NLCS’s extraordinary results came under the spotlight in February after the Sunday Times reported that the school gave A* grades to more than 90% of its 2021 A-level entries, the highest in the country and an increase of 56 percentage points over the 34% who achieved the grade in 2019.
The cancellation of formal A-level and GCSE examinations in 2021 resulted in grades being awarded through teacher assessment using internal processes. This gave schools wide latitude over the grades awarded to their students.
Evidence given to the Guardian from teachers and parents at NLCS suggested the school was prepared to award the highest possible grades to its pupils. An internal message from a senior leader advised staff to “work to make sure students have a good day, in the way we do assessments,” adding: “That way every student has the potential to get the grade they could get, rather than the ones they would get.”
Teachers were warned that talking about grade inflation was “really pointless” and said instead that “assessing in an alternative way” would “favor our students”. Staff were also told: “[There is] clear direction that our grades this year must not match those of previous years.”
A staff meeting in March 2021 said: “These grades will probably be the best grades the school has ever achieved… We will work within the system to create the advantage for them. [the students].”
A letter sent to parents the same month explained how the school planned to alternate lessons with short assessments of the subjects they had just studied. “We are confident that this strategy of preparation, followed by assessment, will give our students the best opportunity to maximize their grades,” the letter said.
Staff who complained about the procedures said they were assured rival schools were going to issue inflated grades, meaning NLCS students would be at a disadvantage and could lose university places.
Bridget Phillipson, the shadow education secretary, called for a full investigation by the Department for Education. “These findings will do nothing to diminish suspicions that certain private schools were gaming the system during the suspension of exams due to Covid,” Phillipson said.
“It is time for the education secretary to launch her own inquiry into the assessment of qualifications during Covid to establish the extent of this exploitation.
“Labour would end tax breaks for private schools and use the money to invest in brilliant state education for all.”
The hearings involving NLCS are the first confirmation of investigations revealed by Dr Jo Saxton, Ofqual’s chief regulator, who told MPs in October that exam boards were “investigating individual cases of malpractice”. to private schools in England about the 2021 results.
An Ofqual spokesman said: “Ofqual takes allegations of malpractice very seriously and we require exam boards to investigate such allegations and address any proven cases of malpractice relating to grades at a school or university. We are not it is appropriate to comment on specific cases”.
A letter sent to Ofqual by a whistleblower, seen by the Guardian, alleged that NLCS leaders were out to exploit loopholes in assessment guidance issued to schools by exam boards.
“Following the government’s announcement that A-levels and GCSEs from 2021 [exams] would be canceled, NLCS senior management was openly excited about the prospect of “our best grades yet” and the appeal of this idea led them to make decisions that had little integrity, even though they seemed to be within the rules.” whistleblower.
In April of this year, the school announced that NLCS Principal Sarah Clark had resigned with immediate effect, after four years in the position.
When asked if his departure was related to the 2021 assessments, a school spokesman said: “Having led the school through the many challenges posed by the Covid pandemic, in In April 2022, Sarah decided the time was right to take a step back and spend some time with her family before taking on her next challenge.”