I helped ignite the exams marking debate – in 1998!

There are times when you think the only safe way to navigate the world is from under the cosy folds of a duvet. You get up, notice things, take action, speak out. But you have no idea where the day’s observations will lead. Safer to stay in bed.

Way back in 1998, I engaged with the world in what I thought at the time was a completely righteous way. I spoke up for the principle of exam boards returning marked exam scripts to candidates. Oh boy, where did that lead? To scandal. To the revelations that many of this year’s papers were wrongly marked, some by as many as four or five grades. Not marks – whole, flaming, permanent grades. And you only found out if you challenged the markers, and that cost more an £40 a throw, and how many other papers got the wrong grade but candidates never found out because they didn’t challenge, for reasons of confidence or poverty or whatever?