The petition of residents of the United Kingdom,
Declares that the Department for Education is not doing enough to mitigate the anxieties and stress of the parents, pupils and teachers at St. Leonard’s Catholic School in City of Durham following on from the disruption caused by RAAC; further declares that pupils at St. Leonard’s Catholic School have not been offered mitigating circumstances for the disruption to their education caused by RAAC.
The petitioners therefore request that the House of Commons urges the Government to bring forward legislation to ensure that the Secretary of State for Education can provide the pupils at St. Leonard’s Catholic School mitigating circumstances for their exams this year, and all those who suffer similar circumstances.
And the petitioners remain, etc.—[Presented by Mary Kelly Foy, Official Report, 23 April 2024; Vol. 748, c. 907.]
[P002959]
Observations from the Minister for Schools (Damian Hinds): The safety of staff and pupils is paramount, and the Department for Education is working closely with schools and colleges to provide the support and resources to mitigate the presence of reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete. There are over 22,000 schools and colleges in England and the vast majority are unaffected by RAAC—around 1% have confirmed RAAC in some areas of their buildings. The Department’s RAAC identification programme is complete. Any school or college that advised us that they suspect they might have RAAC has had a survey to confirm if RAAC is present. We have confirmed to all schools and colleges how they will be funded to remove RAAC permanently, either through grants or through the school rebuilding programme.
We are supporting schools and colleges to keep any disruption to education to an absolute minimum and put in place bespoke plans based on their individual circumstances. All schools and colleges with confirmed RAAC are providing full-time face-to-face education. Every case is unique and the impact on schools is highly varied. In some cases there is no impact on teaching space, or it is limited to small areas; for example, RAAC may be limited to a single classroom. We are taking every step possible to remove any obstacles to learning. For some schools, this may include funding to provide additional education support for their pupils, such as online tutoring or extra lessons.
We have worked particularly closely with St Leonard’s Catholic School and Bishop Wilkinson Catholic Education Trust, and have provided extensive practical and financial assistance. This includes alternative spaces for learning and funding to put extra education provision in place. All pupils at St Leonard’s have been in full-time face-to-face education since October, and additional education support is available to pupils, including those due to sit exams this year. Additional specialist facilities had initially been sourced at other providers in the local area, including science laboratories at Durham University and at another local school within the trust, St Bede’s Catholic School and Sixth Form College, Lanchester—with transport provided for pupils. The school now has access to its own specialist facilities.
The trust has also received significant funding for RAAC-related costs. This includes funding for curriculum support, staffing costs and software packages to provide additional education support for pupils. The school and trust continue to receive support from a dedicated team of officials, all of whom are fully committed to supporting the trust and the school to address the impact of RAAC on pupils and staff. They meet regularly with BWCET representatives and the school to develop and deliver solutions to address the impact of RAAC.
The Department has worked closely with Ofqual and awarding organisations to understand what mitigations can be made for students at RAAC-affected schools sitting exams this year within the current regulatory system.
We have also worked with Ofqual and awarding organisations to facilitate discussions with St Leonard’s School. We have asked awarding organisations to, where possible, agree extensions to deadlines for the submission of coursework and non-exam assessments so that pupils have as much time as possible to complete these tasks. We have asked awarding organisations to offer as much flexibility as possible when granting these extensions and this has been a key area of support offered to RAAC-affected pupils within the existing qualifications framework.
In cases where pupils who have covered the full content of a course are impeded from demonstrating their regular level of attainment at the time of their assessment (for example, if there was ongoing noise during an examination), special consideration can be used as a mechanism to provide minor adjustments to pupils’ marks. JCQ member awarding organisations, including those which offer GCSEs and A-levels, have published guidance which sets out when it may be applied and in what possible circumstances. JCQ has also published specific guidance on how existing special consideration arrangements may apply to centres affected by RAAC or other building issues, particularly in the context of non-exam assessment— https://www.jcq. org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/High-Lev1 RAAC mitigations FINAL.pdf. Special consideration arrangements may apply in a number of different situations.
Special consideration only applies to incidents that occur at the time of an assessment. It is not possible to make adjustments to grading to reflect variabilities in teaching or provision that students may have experienced, or any other issues individual pupils may face over the course of their study that may affect their learning. This is because exams and other formal assessments are designed to be an impartial measure of a pupil’s performance at a particular point in time, and our qualifications system has always reflected the variability in pupils’ experiences in schools and colleges in their results.
Ofqual, as the exams regulator for England, is responsible for maintaining qualification standards and promoting public confidence in regulated qualifications and national assessments. Ofqual’s statutory objectives, as set out in the Apprenticeships, Skills, Children and Learning Act 2009, require it to regulate awarding organisations to ensure that qualifications give a reliable and consistent indication of pupils’ knowledge, skills and understanding. This means that regulated qualifications, such as GCSEs and A-levels, must represent what pupils know, understand and can do at the point of assessment, rather than what they might have known and been able to do if they had been taught differently, or under different circumstances. This is important as it ensures that the evidence used to grade and award qualifications is consistent and can be trusted, and that both holders of qualifications and those using them to make decisions (such as employers or higher education institutions) can be confident in the information they convey about students’ achievements.
A reliable indication of the knowledge, skills and understanding of those taking qualifications and assessments is achieved by ensuring pupils taking a given qualification are assessed and graded to the same standard. It is therefore not possible to bring forward legislation to allow qualification grading to be amended to reflect any disruption to learning that pupils at RAAC-affected schools, such as St Leonard’s, might have experienced without undermining the role of qualifications to fairly represent the actual attainment of pupils. Introducing such legislation would create a system where different standards were to be applied for different groups of students, and result in qualifications that would not provide a reliable indication of knowledge, skills and understanding.
It is important that schools and colleges with concerns about exams and questions about whether their students will be eligible for special consideration contact the relevant awarding organisation as soon as possible to discuss their specific circumstances. Decisions on special consideration, when it is or is not appropriate, are for each awarding organisation to make on a case-by- case basis.
The Department is committed to supporting BWCET and St Leonard’s and is continuing to work with them in the interests of pupils. We have also confirmed that St Leonard’s will be rebuilt as part of our school rebuilding programme, which is transforming over 500 schools across England.