“DON’T let anyone tell you that standards have dropped because more of you have done well, this is simply a myth,” David Miliband told A-level students this week.

But no matter what the Schools Minister says in defence of the exams system, after marking 382 A-level scripts this year I saw grade inflation first hand. In fact I implemented it.

Having taken a sabbatical from my job as head of religious studies at an independent boy’s school, I offered my services to one of the examination boards. I hoped that marking papers would give me an insight into a system that can seem as closed to teachers as it does to the public. I also hoped that it would improve my teaching.

In May, I attended a preliminary meeting for new examiners. There I was introduced to the rationale behind the marking standard. I was told that unless I was willing to award 100 per cent on occasion I could not be an examiner: full marks must be attainable. That must be right, but it misses the point, which is whether A levels offer an accurate reflection of the academic attainment of the nation.

The marking standard was presented at an examiners’ meeting a month later. These meetings are not discursive: the examiners are introduced to their team leaders, sit in groups and practise marking exams according to the standard which the subject officer and their team leaders have set. The experience was uncomfortable. I knew that the exam board marked to a strict criterion, but I had not expected to disagree so thoroughly with the manner in which marks were applied. Not one teacher in the meeting agreed with the board’s criterion. There were gasps of disbelief, shaking of heads, bemused smiles, and even murmurs that the marking of the AS ethics paper was itself becoming an ethical question.

I found that A-levels do differentiate between abilities — after all I awarded grades ranging from U to A — but they do so by using a standard of attainment that most teachers I spoke to found depressingly low. The standard is low because the majority of pupils write poor scripts. I was ill-prepared for the sheer nonsense many adolescents write.

When the subject officer and the team leaders defended the marks that they had awarded to a cross-section of scripts at the standardisation meeting, I was surprised. One pupil had argued incorrectly that natural law was about nature and therefore in agreement with a natural inclination to mercy killing. But we were told not to penalise for wrong information. The candidate had shown a reasonable understanding of the theory’s fundamental principles. “Reasonable?” A teacher queried. “Yes, reasonable”, they replied. But she had not mentioned Aquinas, my colleague countered. True, but she did not have to include the primary precepts at this level, they argued. She had mentioned God, and had demonstrated sufficient knowledge of euthanasia, and so merited a mark within the “reasonable” level. “Congratulations,” my colleague muttered, “I would expect a 14-year-old to know as much.”

I failed about a third of students, until I was told that my marking did not correspond to the standard. I was not only penalising students who had used the word “ensoulment” when I should have realised that they had meant “personhood”, but I was giving full marks to excellent answers from sheer delight. When I returned to my first tranche of scripts, I found that those whom I had awarded a U grade were now gaining an E or a D, while some high C grade students were now gaining a low A.

Few people realise how often the mark an examiner has awarded can be reviewed. This laborious procedure is necessary if uniformity is to be achieved. As an examiner my marks were checked by a team leader and re-evaluated if they fell outside the standard. If I were found to be consistently tough, all my marks were scaled up. If, once all the marks are received, too few students have gained an A, then the grade boundary is lowered to ensure that there is an acceptable cross-section of grades.

Grade inflation is a reality and it benefits only students at the lower end of the spectrum: many who do not deserve to pass are awarded E and D grades. But it penalises the most able students. If poor knowledge can be construed as reasonable, then good knowledge becomes excellent, and excellent knowledge falls off scale. A pupil with 100 per cent is lumped with a student who has scraped an A. No wonder universities find it difficult to separate the strong from the weak. The A-level system has been bankrupted by grade inflation.

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