Oral Answers to Questions

Hugh Bayley Excerpts

Monday 3rd September 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hayes]

I am the personification of the relationship between the two Departments to which the right hon. Gentleman refers. It is essential that our strategy for growth and our approach to business work in tandem with what we do in schools. Although he cannot welcome it, as he has already asked his question, I am sure that he will want at least to contemplate the excellent advice to schools on this very subject that I issued just before the summer recess.

[Hugh Bayley (York Central) (Lab)]

7. What proportion of students at state schools in York achieved five or more GCSEs at (a) grade A* to C and (b) grades A* to E in 2012.

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

The Department for Education will publish tables of provisional GCSE results for 2012 in October. In 2011, 84.3% of pupils in state schools in York achieved five or more GCSEs at grade A* to C and 94.3% achieved five or more GCSEs at grade A* to E.

[Hugh Bayley]

York’s schools continue to perform better than the national average, but I have faced many complaints from parents and teachers about the English marking fiasco. The head teacher of one of York’s best performing schools, Steve Smith, says:

“It is morally wrong to manipulate exam results in this way—it is playing with young people’s futures.”

Will the Secretary of State advise Ofqual to re-mark the papers according to the old criteria while the inquiry goes on and will he publish all his correspondence with Ofqual on this matter?