Cancelling exams shows Boris has failed to learn his lesson

‘Don’t worry, they won’t cancel exams again,’ I confidently assured my fifteen-year-old middle son shortly before Christmas. He was sitting his mock GCSEs, and fretting over how much they might matter, admitting: ‘I haven’t done enough work.’ Only a month ago, education secretary Gavin Williamson gave a ‘cast-iron guarantee’ exams would ‘absolutely’ go ahead in England. It seemed clear he and Boris Johnson had learnt their lesson. They’d not be so foolish as to do the same thing over again: pull exams without a proper plan of what to do instead. More fool me.

For my family – and for plenty of others in a similar position – it’s once bitten, twice shy. Last summer, my eighteen-year-old eldest son had his A levels axed and fake grades doled out instead. Those computer moderated grades were rejected by his two firm choices of Glasgow and Liverpool universities. His school told him to appeal and sent us home to enter clearing.