Huge congratulations to students and staff, but Government approach to grades ‘shambolic’ - MP

South Lakes MP Tim Farron has called the Government's approach to A-level grades 'shambolic' as disruption turns into distress for hundreds of sixth form students across the South Lakes.

Speaking this morning, Tim said: "This has been the most surreal and disruptive few months, especially for young people studying for life changing exams.

"Huge congratulations to all those people who got the grades they needed, and huge thanks to the teachers who helped to make that possible.

"However, for hundreds of local students the disruption of the last few months has now been turned into distress because of the Government's shambolic approach to agreeing grades. In many cases, ministers have chosen not to trust our teachers and to instead use an untested system to award grades that are often far worse than the grades students would have actually got.

"To make matters worse, the Government thinks it has got itself off the hook by saying that students can appeal and opt to have the grade from their mocks if their actual grades are worse than they hoped.

"But of course, most people do better in their final exams than their mocks - which is the whole point of mocks. The Government grades must be an utterly tragic misrepresentation of our young people's abilities if their mock results end up being better."