Exclusive: TV head teacher attacks Gove GCSE plans (video)

The Department for Education (DfE) has announced that only a student’s first attempt at GCSEs will count toward a school’s score in performance tables in an attempt to crackdown on multiple entries.

However Jonny Mitchell, the head at Thornhill Academy, near Dewsbury, warned that the decision would widen the gap between schools with those battling to meet floor targets being the hardest hit.

The head teacher, who has become one of the stars of the Channel 4 documentary showing life inside his school, is also unhappy with the change being introduced during the school year. He has accused Mr Gove of “shifting the goalpost while the game is being played.”

Mr Gove believes early entries into exams are damaging but Mr Mitchell told the Yorkshire Post for some students it helped move them toward a crucial C grade.

The change is being made with immediate effect, a month before some year 11 pupils were set to sit their first attempt at GCSEs.

Mr Mitchell said allowing a pupil to sit the exam twice increased their chances of getting a better grade at the end of the course. However he warned pupils’ chances of a better mark were being undermined if schools faced being judged on the first attempt in league tables.

He said: “I think the overriding feeling among most head teachers, certainly among my leadership team is one of disappointment. We have got in excess of 150 kids geared up for an early entry in GCSE maths because that was what we thought was the right thing to do given the regime which was in place. Although we were mindful of the fact that only the first entry would count in future years this has been thrown upon us now and it means difficult decisions for schools

“Schools have got two ways to fall. The first is to say: ‘We plough ahead with what we had planned and hope the kids get the very best grades they can in that first sitting and if they don’t they can still resit them in the summer and get better grades and secure their futures’. At the end of the day we should all be doing what is best for the kids but the carrot of the performance table which so many people read so many things into - rightly or wrongly - means that some schools will not be in that luxurious position to be able to do that.

“I do think it will widen the gap between different types of school. Schools like ours are always battling against changes to the Ofsted framework and also examination and performance tables and I think its more one more instance of the Secretary of State for Education and the education department shifting the goalposts while the game is actually being played. I do find this disappointing.”

The change announced by the DfE this week will affect English, maths, science, history, geography, and modern languages GCSE and IGCSE.

All GCSE exams sat by pupils in the 2014/15 academic year will also be affected by this change.

Mr Gove has accused some schools of using early entries to “bank” C grades to improve league table positions.

A statement issued by the DfE said Mr Gove believes “early entry is a damaging trend that is harming the interests of many pupils.

It added: “The evidence shows that candidates who enter early perform worse overall than those who do not even after resits are taken into account.

It seems likely that candidates are being entered early before they are ready and ‘banking’ a C grade where their performance at key stage two would suggest that if they had continued to study the subject and taken the GCSE at the of end of year 11 they could have achieved a top grade.”