Exam board admits adjusting marks to 'maintain standards'

The exam board at the centre of allegations that A-level results were "fixed" to avoid a massive increase in A grades admitted yesterday to adjusting the grading system in order to "maintain parity of standards". The Oxford, Cambridge and RSA examinations board conceded that it increased numbers of marks needed for a grade.

OCR said Dr Ron McLone, the board's chief executive, had intervened to "maintain parity of standards" with last year's results.

In a letter to John Bridges, head teacher at Wrenkin College in Shropshire, Mr McLone said this meant "striking an appropriate balance to ensure that, overall, the standards required at A-Level in 2001 were demonstrably carried forward into the 2002 A-Level awards.

"To achieve that, the A2 unit standards finally established had to be more demanding than those originally recommended by many of our awarding committees."

Wrenkin College had complained that its coursework marks for those sitting the English literature exam had been unfairly reduced. The board saidmarks for coursework in English, one of the subjects supposedly affected,were higher than in written papers.

Meanwhile, worries about exam results and success at school have replaced bullying as schoolchildren's biggest fear, according to findings in a survey released today.

The poll of pupils aged seven to 16 revealed that 46 per cent were more concerned with doing well at school than with anything else. Bullying was the third biggest fear, with 40 per cent citing it as a big worry. In second place was exposure to the dangers of drugs or alcohol.

Parents' leaders said the survey, run by RM, a supplier of technological equipment to schools, underlined how much pressure was being put on schoolchildren by the Government's testing regime. Margaret Morrissey, a spokeswoman for the National Confederation of Parent Teacher Associations, said: "It is sad to think that all the pressures are having such an impact on today's children. It ... shows that children have lost something that we should cherish dearly ­ their childhood."

In previous responses to the annual survey, more than two-thirds of pupils had cited bullying as a major concern.

Education experts said the findings might be a sign that the Government's anti-bullying drive was paying off. Gill Evans, an educational psychologist, said the findings raised another question: "Can a certain degree of worry about doing well at school act as a positive stressor that enhances school performance?"