I AM retiring this summer after 32 years as Head of Spanish at Colchester Sixth Form College, having taught my last A-level classes. There were some remarkable A-level successes this year at the college, but there remains a staggering disparity between the way grades have been awarded when you contrast private and state schools.

Nationally speaking, there were 70 per cent A-A* grades at A level in private schools this year, but only 35 per cent in state-funded sixth form colleges across the whole country. How has the Government allowed this to happen? When we were awarding grades in our college in May, it was recommended to us that we should try not to deviate too far from the last three years’ results, and that the percentage of grades A*-E should be roughly in line with previous years. We scrupulously applied these principles, but it seems that other institutions did not.

I find the inequality between state schools and private schools depressing, after all I have worked for in education. There is a lot of talk now about how to repress top grades for next year in order to avoid inflation, but this may actually make it even more difficult for our hard-working college students to achieve higher grades, if the measures are applied across the board. This is exactly what happened last year when the Government used a flawed algorithm system which favoured smaller classes (eg private schools) and unfairly hit establishments like ours.

Everything is stacked against the SFC sector. One shocking example of this is that many private schools have charitable status. What is the logic in that? In contrast, state sixth form colleges have to pay VAT, an outrageous and outdated injustice which makes a huge dent in the colleges’ depleted budgets.

Where is the justice in all of this?

David Huggon

Colchester Sixth Form College

North Hill

Colchester

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