Please explain exam boards to me: why so many? Why doesn't the DofE do it?

[ParentOfOne]

This is going to sound a very banal question, but can someone please explain the concept of exam boards?

In many other countries, it's the Department of Education that sets the national curriculum and prepares the national exams (GCSE, A-levels and equivalents).

• Why do we have various boards in the UK?
• Are they all private entities?
• Who pays for them?
• Has it always been like this, or was there a time when it was all done by the Department of Education?
• How meaningful are the differences between exam boards? Eg how much of a difference is there between Edexcel maths and AQA maths?
• Is each secondary school free to choose which exam board to follow?
• How comparable are the programs and the difficulty? Does this create an unfair advantage, if getting a high score is easier with one board than another?
• If there are no meaningful differences, why do we have multiple exam boards?

I have seen that Wikipedia provides some history https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Examination_boards_in_the_United_Kingdom but doesn't address the main questions

@ParentOfOne - what I said is very simple. If a parent or child does not like a school, you take them out and send them to another school! It is not complicated! Also schools like Holland Park and Mossbourne are in London where there are plenty of other options and if you bother to do a tour and look at the school as a parent before you put it on your CAF, it is pretty obvious what the ethos and culture is in some of these schools.

It's not a case of they shouldn't have been privatised in the first place they have always been private entities. They existed before state education

GP practices are very similar to academies; private profit-making businesses with one very large contract to the state and a few very much smaller private contracts. If you don’t like your GP you have to move elsewhere. If either a GP or a teacher messes up you have to go to their external regulator.

"Shame on you! It's like saying: why should anyone care that that employer raped a few girls, you can always choose to work elsewhere"

Right stop it now. This is getting crazy and you are accusing PP of excusing rape!! That is clearly not what they said and you are putting highly offensive words in their mouth.

I would suggest everyone stops engaging with you at this point. We get your agenda, no-one agrees with you, move on!

In fact, some of these schools are an advertisement to not rely on exam results and Ofsted and all that centralised data BS. Look at the schools in person, talk to the people in your locality, find the right fit for your child and your family. That is what most parents in London do and they have the privilege of choice. Some people live in areas with no transport links and hardly any choice, that is a different matter. But to hold up Holland Park and Mossbourne or even Michaela as some sort of problem - well they are pretty clear on how things operate there and what the expectations are. Michaela is also marmite, if you sign up to her school then you follow her principles. If you do not like it, do not put it on your CAF and then whine about it!
I signed my youngest up to a grammar that is competitive. I know full well he won’t be able to stay for Sixth Form if he does not get the necessary GCSE grades. I am not going to whine about the 1 hour homework and demands they set. That is what I signed up for.

We are very lucky to have open days in this country and so much insight into schools on their websites and loads of public forums too. Plenty of countries do not have any of that!

Yes, and I have moved GP practices twice for precisely that reason and I would take my kids out of a school in a heart beat if they were not thriving there. We do have choice here, that is a privilege!

@Wherehasthecatgone Exactly: with GP practices there are external bodies with whom to escalate your complaint. Not so with academies.
Tale this GP complaints policy: https://marylebonehealthcentre.co.uk/complaints-and-feedback-procedure/
You can complain to NHS England, to the Health Service Ombudsman and you can also file a complaint with the General Medical Council.

Now take Mossbourne's complaints policy: https://www.mca.mossbourne.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/Complaints-Policy-September-2024-onwards.pdf
Stages 1 to 4 are just the school investigating itself.
Stage 5 is the Secretary of State, but even they cannot overturn a school's decision https://www.richmond.gov.uk/media/11105/making_a_complaint.pdf

See how the model is different?
See how academies lack accountability?

@twistyizzy She seems to have no issues with schools which have bullied and emotionally abused hundreds of students, and no issues with the academy model that lets them do so with no accountability. So, no, my comments are not exaggerated.
Of course if you want to think that I am the crazy one because I think schools should be accountable and should not be allowed to engage in bullying and emotional abuse, by all means think that and unfollow the thread.

@Araminta1003 Of course different schools will fit different families.
I am not saying that every school must be how I would want a school for my kids.
I am saying that things like emotional abuse are always wrong.
I am saying that we cannot excuse those abuses, and we cannot have a system which lets academies carry on with those abuses because they are de facto unaccountable to anyone.

The GP practice investigates itself in the same way the academies do. You can complain to the Teacher Regulation Agency about teachers the same was you can complain to the GMC about doctors.

I do not think GP practices are a good example for you to use as a model for a good complaints system.

Where did I say any of that @ParentOfOne? I never said I am OK with emotional abuse. If your child is unhappy, take them out immediately, even if the Ofsted report is glowing and everyone raves about the school and even if their sibling did well there! That is literally all I am saying. It is well meaning advice. It is common sense advice too. The fact of the matter is parents get sidetracked by Ofsted outstanding and exam results and they should never do that!

@Araminta1003 When I pointed out that academies have no accountability, you replied that your academy is fine and that families can take their kids elsewhere. Do you agree that lack of accountability is a bad thing and that what happened at Mossbourne and Holland Park, with no consequences, should not happen?

As far as I understand it, there are independent reviews into Mossbourne and one should wait for the outcome of those.
Not being personally involved whatsoever, why would you expect me to take a stance officially on something pending review? Seems completely irrationale.

There seems to be some very rose tinted glasses here about council controlled schools.

@Araminta1003 Not being personally involved whatsoever, why would you expect me to take a stance officially on something pending review? Seems completely irrationale.

Because I wasn't asking you to opine on Mossbourne itself, but more generally on the model which allows this lack of accountability.
The model whereby the school has engaged a law firm to carry out an investigation, whose report will not be disclosed publicly.

@Wherehasthecatgone There seems to be some very rose tinted glasses here about council controlled schools.

You will notice I have never said nor implied that councils do a perfect job running schools. My key point is not that, it's that any model whereby there is little to no accountability and the entity running a school (be it an academy or a council) can mark its own homework is flawed.

“The model whereby the school has engaged a law firm to carry out an investigation, whose report will not be disclosed publicly.”

Law firms are regulated and presumable it is an independent review which will have conclusions. Why does it have to be disclosed to the court of public opinion?
This is not a negligence suit. We certainly cannot get into a situation where parents can sue state education for damages.

Presumably the governors will get to see the report too? And policies will be adapted and conclusions acted on? Educators are professionals after all, they are not just going to ignore any negative conclusions completely. They may adapt their policies and hiring practices and discipline procedures and learn from the review. But if you are insinuating it is some sort of massive scandal like what happened in certain care homes or children’s homes in the past? I mean how could it be because the children in state secondary schools go home every day and tell their parents what goes on and those children have capacity and so do their parents. They are not young children without parents nor vulnerable old people with dementia etc. So the choice to remove their kids was always there for the adults.

With the exam boards as well, if they are doing an inconsistent job and the marking is rubbish overall, for one board in one subject in one year (for example), then the schools and parents send in multiple reviews and it all comes out in the wash. So there is accountability. People are not idiots, they question things, including on MN and all over social media. Same with schools now. If a school is going downhill rapidly due to poor leadership, people come to know pretty quickly and do withdraw their children.

For the last time: I do not see exam boards as a priority.
I have no reason to think one is necessarily easier than the others (but I get it that opinions on this differ, as on anything).

On Mossbourne, you are prejudiced. You seem to have already decided a priori that either those accusations are false, or, even if they are true, the governors will adapt and fix everything. Well, what happened at Holland Park school shows that governors cannot always be trusted to do that.

Why make the investigation public? Well, I don't know, maybe for the same reasons why the results of Ofsted inspections are made public? Because if public money is used to fund a school which emotionally abuses its children, maybe it's in the public interest to know?

You are also hugely underestimating the complexity of changing schools. There is much less movement for secondaries than for primaries, so changing schools at secondary is much harder in densely populated areas where most schools are oversubscribed. I know families in London who had to wait 2 years before changing schools because the only other ones which had room were 90 minutes away on public transport

But if you are insinuating it is some sort of massive scandal like what happened in certain care homes or children’s homes in the past

I am not insinuating anything. I am simply stating that, when more than 200 individuals come forward all with the same accusations, then the accusations must be looked into - and not by an investigation commissioned by the accused themselves!!!

www.theguardian.com/education/2024/dec/15/academy-trust-england-safeguarding-review-mossbourne

For the last time: I do not see exam boards as a priority.

Then why not start a thread on your priority rather than exam boards?

@Wherehasthecatgone So I am only allowed to ask about things which are my top priority?
Have you just made this rule?
tell me, what is the penalty for breaching it?

@ParentOfOne - both Holland Park and Mossbourne were all over social media and the press. They include some extremely influential parents who have the means to raise their grievances very publicly. Bercow and Gove’s kids attended Holland Park. These are hardly schools with no accountability nor ability to raise alarm bells. Surely the opposite is the case!

No, but when you start a thread about exam boards you can’t expect people not to talk about exam boards or assume that was your priority on this thread.

We must have very different concepts of accountability, then.

The headteacher at Holland Park conveniently retired.
AFAIK, no one was held accountable.
No one was fired, fined, suspended, not even reprimanded

No one asked how Ofsted could have missed such a biggie, and how reliable their inspections are if they gave an outstanding to a school where that was happening under their nose.

The school "closed" and reopened under a different trust. All under the rug. Let bygones be bygones.

Is that your definition of accountability? It isn't mine.

At Mossbourne, a year has gone by and nothing has happened.

ofsted inspections are not reliable and they regularly miss all kinds of things.

nobody in education (with the possible exception of some ofsted people) would say they hold schools to account.