So, clarity at last about the assessment of GCSEs, A Levels and vocational qualifications in England this summer.

You would have thought that, after the algorithm chaos last summer, consultations about 2021 grading would have begun as soon as we went into the second lockdown at the end of October. By that point it would have been clear that students working towards GCSEs and A Levels in 2021 were going to be seriously affected by the disruptions spread over two school years.

In fact, that is exactly what did happen in Wales, where Lib Dem Education Minister, Kirsty Williams, announced in November that external terminal exams would not be held for the current cohort. Instead teacher assessments would be used, although these could include some assessments which would be externally set and marked. Scotland and Northern Ireland also announced their plans some weeks ago.

Back in England the consultation did not begin until this year, and it is only today that decisions have been unveiled. In the Commons today Gavin Williamson announced that grades will be allocated according to teacher assessments. The assessments will be based on what students have been taught, not by what they missed, and will take a variety of formats.

I welcome this outcome – I have been saying for a long time that the learning of the current students in Years 11 and 13 will be much more severely compromised than those in the year ahead of them, bad as that was. But I do not welcome the timing – the Government has piled further stress on students by leaving this announcement so late. And the stress affects teachers as well; they have been having to revise programmes of learning on the hoof. They now have to rapidly develop assessment procedures at the time when they are fully stretched in preparing for the return of all pupils on 8th March.

There is no one perfect way of assessing learning for qualifications. All methods have drawbacks, from inaccuracies in marking to teacher bias, not to mention the timing of assessments in relation to the mental and physical health of students. However there is a perception that teacher assessments are less robust than externally marked exams, and I would want to challenge that.

For many years I ran a number of A Level and BTEC courses in Computing in a Further Education College. All the courses included practical elements; at A Level that would be a substantial and fully documented project that included a solution developed in computer code. I had to spend the whole of the Easter break each year assessing maybe 60 of these projects. But the final mark was not just down to me – an external moderator sampled projects at random and adjusted the overall pattern of marking to make it consistent with other centres. I am sure that something similar will happen this year across the board, and indeed there will be a cohort of external examiners and exam markers who would otherwise have little to do.

But mistakes do happen, as well as the (very) occasional corrupt practice, so it is very important that there is an appeals system in place that students trust. Appeals in the past have dragged on into the next academic year, sometimes making it impossible for students to progress immediately to the next stage. This year resources should be put in place to ensure that appeals can be handled promptly.

* Mary Reid is a contributing editor on Lib Dem Voice. She was a councillor in Kingston upon Thames, where she is still very active with the local party, and is the Hon President of Kingston Lib Dems.