The Spectator

School report: a round-up of recent stories from the front line in education

Unconditional offers, GCSE gaps and climate change protests

issue 08 September 2019

 
 
 

Unconditional Offers

 
In the last Spectator Schools, Ross Clark wrote about the dangers of ‘unconditional offers’, whereby a university offers a student a place irrespective of their exam results. The topic has come back into the news following this year’s A-level results, with headmasters bemoaning the apathy among students that unconditional offers can create.

A number of heads blamed unconditional offers for the drop in top A-level results, with Universities Minister Jo Johnson writing that unconditional offers risk ‘undermining the faith which rests in our education system’. Nicola Dandridge, chief executive of the Office for Students, confirmed that it was concerned over the rise in such offers. ‘We know that students who are given and accept unconditional offers may drop a couple of grades in their A-levels because they do take their foot off the pedal,’ she said.
 


GCSE and A-level results

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