Oral Answers to Questions

Meg Hillier Excerpts

Monday 29th October 2012 Commons Chamber

[Kelvin Hopkins (Luton North) (Lab)]

14. What assessment he has made of the 2012 GCSE English results; and if he will make a statement.

[Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)]

16. What assessment he has made of the 2012 GCSE English results; and if he will make a statement.

[The Secretary of State for Education (Michael Gove)]

On 18 October, provisional national and local authority level GCSE results for 2012 were published. The percentage of pupils achieving grades A* to C in English had fallen by three percentage points to 66.2%. The independent regulator, Ofqual, continues its investigation into the awarding of English GCSEs this year, and is now looking into why some schools achieved the results that they had expected while others did not. The final report will be published shortly.

[Michael Gove]

I share the concern felt by the hon. Gentlemen. We must wait to see the Ofqual report before we can be more certain about what went wrong this year, but it is clear that there were a variety of factors consequent on the design of the examination, and that we need to take steps to remedy them.

[Meg Hillier]

In Hackney, 103 pupils received D grades in English in June. In some cases, classmates at the same schools achieved lower scores in January, and received C grades. In each of the five schools affected in Hackney, at least 85% of ethnic minority pupils received Ds rather than Cs. The Secretary of State talked about looking into why some schools had achieved less than others. Will he look into this very serious matter as well?

[Michael Gove]

I certainly shall. Hackney has an exemplary record of educational improvement, and when there are inconsistencies such as this, we must look at the evidence to work out what has happened.