German girl sees German A-level result downgraded from A to C

14 August 2020, 09:41

German girl given C in German A-level

This caller's daughter is half-German, lived in Germany for five years and is fluent in the language. She told Iain Dale that her German A-level result was downgraded from A to C.

England's exam regulator said it was forced to downgrade thousands of A-level results because some of the teacher's predictions were "implausibly high".

Nearly two in five students have seen their results adjusted down, after exams were cancelled because of the coronavirus pandemic.

But Iain said the algorithm was clearly completely unfair when it came to a situation like this.

The caller said: "My daughter is half-German, she lived and was brought up in Germany, she was born there and we stayed there for five years.

"We moved to England, but I continued her German lessons with the German embassy on Saturdays. She attained a GCSE grade 9.

"Today we found out that for her A-level German, which we thought was a definite A, she ended up with a C. Even though she's fluent in German."

A shocked Iain said: "That's the problem, isn't it? No algorithm could cope with that situation. That's the weakness of the system.

"If you can't create an algorithm that can cope with individual circumstances, then there's little point in going ahead with it."

Hear the remarkable call at the top of the page.