The countdown clock is ticking, the panicky last-minute revision reaching feverish levels. No parent currently tiptoeing around snappy, stressed teenagers will need reminding that exam season now looms in England and Wales, or that it’s already under way in Scotland. But if nerves are jangling more than usual this year, both in staff rooms and at home, that’s hardly surprising.
After three years of pandemic grade inflation, caused first by teachers having to conjure up grades and then by exam boards making understandable allowances for what children had been through, this is the year that exam regulator Ofqual finally plans to ratchet GCSE and A-level grades back down to normal (though with some leeway on the borderline). The trouble is that in many schools, normal still feels a very long way off.
