Full A-level documents

A GOVERNMENT reform of A-levels is set to backfire by making the gap in exam results between independent and comprehensive schools wider than ever, according to official forecasts.

Almost 25% of pupils in the private sector are expected to gain at least one of the new A* grades, compared with just 9% from comprehensives. Grammar schools are forecast to perform even better.

Pupils beginning A-level studies this autumn will be the first group eligible for the A* when it is awarded in 2010. The grade was introduced to help universities choose the brightest candidates from the soaring numbers being awarded straight As.

The unintended consequence, however, could be to undermine the government’s policy of pushing universities to take more students from state schools.

The forecasts, released under the Freedom of Information Act, were drawn up last year by the government’s exam regulator, the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority (QCA).

Mike Cresswell, director-general of the exam board AQA, which helped with the authority’s analysis, said independent and grammar schools were already ahead on A grades and would become even more dominant with A* grades.

“This will make the selection process easier [for universities] in terms of differentiation between the very, very best candidates and the rest, but more complicated for them from the widening access perspective.”

The forecasts are included in analysis done by the QCA of the impact of the new grade.

Among those who win three A*s, the gap will be even wider. About 6% of independent school students are forecast to enter this elite, compared with 0.6% of comprehensive school pupils.

The authority warns the A* could be vulnerable to schools and pupils who “play the system”. They could concentrate most of their effort on the second half of the A-level course, known as the A2, in which pupils must score at least 90% to gain the new top grade.

Under the current system, the analysis finds, independent school pupils are also far more likely to resit papers, which can lead to marks being upgraded. Nearly half of all students in the private sector retake some papers, compared with just over 30% in comprehensives.

The QCA believes that in future there will be less incentive to resit AS papers, taken in the first year of A-levels.

Geoff Parks, director of admissions at Cambridge University, said it would use A* grades in its offers for undergraduate places but he was “sceptical” about the QCA’s forecasts.

He added that other reforms to make papers harder could reduce the advantage of independent schools and “reduce the ability of the exam factories to get reasonably able students up to very high standards”.

The proportion of pupils gaining grade A at A-level has gone up steadily, from 16% in 1997 to 25.3% last year. The A* was introduced in response to complaints from leading universities that A grades were devalued and no longer enabled them to pick the best students.

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