Consequences

It’s what we teach. Boys and girls, what you do has consequences, what you do will change the way people live their lives, the way people see you and eventually the world.

It is, looking at the past week, our most important challenge for the years ahead.

As teachers we have all had to try and explain the concept of consequence to a student. Maybe they cheated and don’t understand why it’s an issue, maybe they hit someone and can’t see the world from their victims perspective. Eventually we get to them, eventually.

Last week the English scores for some exam boards were published. Rather than the expected grades it appeared the boundaries, the divisions between grades, had been moved up. It was now harder to score a high grade.

No one knew, no one worked it out in time.

I try to imagine the people taking this decision. Pressurised by government, a room somewhere, magnolia walls, an overused flipchart ion the corner, a man in a frayed tweed coat holding his head in his hands, helpless as a bureaucrat draws a line that affects thousands of young men and women.

So they rejoiced. Standards are being kept.

But they fail to see the students who miss their grades. What happens to them? Students who, having failed to hit one of the benchmarks for access to further education are then denied access to courses and institutions to pursue their own dreams: thousands of students who change their plans, who move their entire lives because someone, in a magnolia room, next to an overused flip chart, moved the goalposts.

Actions have consequences. The advantage for the perpetrators of this action is they do not have to look at the lives being changed, watch young men and women tack with the tempestuous legislative wind and end up in a very different place.

If a principle of education is fairness it seems the examination boards have failed.

Now, like adults perhaps they could admit their mistake.

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