Exam crisis: Heads say all A-levels should be re-marked

The examination system was facing its deepest crisis in memory last night as headteachers insisted every A-level grade should be reissued to calm mounting anger over the alleged downgrading of results.

They rejected a move by Estelle Morris, the Secretary of State for Education, to order the re-marking of 4,000 disputed A-level scripts brought to the attention of exam boards by heads who claimed pupils had been marked down to avoid claims of grade inflation.

Leaders of the Headmasters' and Headmistresses' Conference (HMC) and the Girls' Schools Association, which represent leading independent schools, joined forces with the Secondary Heads Association, which represents state school heads, to claim they had evidence that government exam watchdogs "leant" on all the three leading exam boards to change grade boundaries for A-levels this year.

The three organisations representing schools said: "We understand that direct pressures by the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority [the exam watchdog] was brought to bear on the chief executives of the three examining bodies in England."

David Hart, general secretary of the National Association of Head Teachers, said that if true it was "a scandalous situation and heads should roll''.

Edward Gould, chairman of the HMC and head of Marlborough College, said: "The quickest way to resolve this situation is to reissue the results." If that entailed the regrading of scripts by all 200,000 pupils who sat A-levels this summer, "so be it".

The three schools organisations renewed their demand for an independent inquiry. They added that the exam boards – the Oxford and Cambridge and RSA Board (OCR), the Assessment and Qualifications Alliance (AQA) and Edexcel – must return to the grade boundaries set earlier in the year before a decision to raise them was taken. They added that all the results should then be reissued, and demanded a meeting with ministers to discuss their claims.

Mr Gould said he had spoken to the chief executives of the exam boards and been told they had been put under pressure by the QCA to raise the grade boundaries – a claim the QCA has consistently denied.

Heads claim this was to avoid grade inflation but the exam boards insist they raised the boundaries because they were running a new exam system. To compensate for easier AS-levels, taken in the lower sixth form, work on A2s in the second year had to be made more demanding, the boards said.

The heads' complaints initially centred on coursework for the OCR's English, history and psychology A-level papers. Their statement yesterday said: "Each examining board made adjustments in their own way. OCR's adjustments were most significant, followed by AQA and, to a lesser extent, Edexcel." Their concerns now covered a much wider range of subjects.

The heads' demands for universal re-marking came minutes after Ms Morris announced she had agreed with the QCA that all the disputed scripts shown to exam boards (about 4,000) by heads should be re-marked. She said: "This needs to be done quickly. We need to ensure that public confidence in the exam system itself is not knocked by this.''

The heads said public confidence in the system this year had already been eroded.

Sir William Stubbs, chairman of the QCA, rejected the claim that inappropriate pressure had been put on exam boards "This is completely without foundation," he said last night.