'Scrap school exams' - Leeds education boss warns Government and reveals nearly 6,000 pupils in city are self isolating

The comments came during a meeting of a council scrutiny board, which also heard 95 primary and secondary schools in the city have already recorded Covid-19 cases among staff or pupils since term was restarted last month.

According to a report in the Telegraph, the Government wanted to reintroduce school exams in 2021, but delay them by up to three weeks to make up for lost time during the pandemic.

But Coun Jonathan Pryor, Leeds City Council’s executive member for learning, said holding exams would be unfair due to the wildly differing experiences of education faced by pupils who have had to self-isolate.

He said: “The education secretary has announced that exams in 2021 will be taking place, but hasn’t given a huge indication as to how this may happen, bar a suggestion it may be delayed for two or three weeks.

“I am not convinced that an exam period this (school) year will work too well. I think we are going to see students’ experience of learning is going to vary wildly, we are going to see different areas of local lockdown, so one consistent exam period I don’t think will be that productive.

“We need to be working on this now. You can see a better scenario where exams can be scrapped and can be quite easily be replaced with a form of teacher-led staged assessments over the year.

“Those preparations need to be starting now.

“One common feedback I have had from a lot of teachers is the enormous amount of pressure they are under and how much they are getting burned out already.”

According to a report by Leeds City Council officers, education secretary Gavin Williamson confirmed the Government was determined exams should go ahead in 2021 should go ahead. For GCSEs and A-levels, there may be a short delay to these taking place to allow teachers more time to catch up missed teaching time.

Coun Pryor added: “A lot of new regulations and guidance from the DfE is coming very late and very close to implementation, leaving no time to prepare or meaning preparations have had to be completely replaced.

“We will be in talks with the DfE to make sure exams are much better prepared for this year, but I do think a teacher-led assessment would be much better than formal exams.”

The meeting also heard from Coun Pryor that, as of Monday, October 5, attendance at schools in Leeds was currently at 87 percent. It is down from 95.1 percent for the same period last year.

A total of 5,895 pupils were self-isolating – but this does not necessarily mean a positive Covid-19 test.

He added: “We have seen quite a rise in elective home education – the largest known reason is Covid-19 but it is not the only one – and the largest age group is year one.

“For the current picture of the Covid cases we have had in school – we have seen a number of bubbles collapse. A lot of children are off, but we are seeing the system working.”

As of Monday, Leeds had recorded 29 secondary schools with cases – 26 of which had more than two cases, while eight with more than 10 cases.

Meanwhile, 66 of the city’s primary schools had infections – with 21 with more than one case, and one with more than 10 cases. Five special schools saw instances, with four with more than one case.