How should we grade exams?

Secondary schools become rather different places at this time of the year. Older students are engaged in public examinations of various kinds and younger ones are often sitting internal tests or completing assessments. The school buildings can seem somewhat quiet and empty. Later in the term, drama productions, concerts and sports and the familiar end-of-year rituals take over and the whole place comes alive again.

Meanwhile, we are nearing the end of the current style of school examinations and facing an era when students no longer complete their education at 16. Recently, the grading system for the new GCSE examinations has been under discussion. Apparently, the minister favours a 1 to 4 grading to replace A* and A grades. In my day, O levels were graded 1 to 9, and then 1 and 2 became grade A at GCSE and 3 and 4 became grade B and so forth.