The Labour-run Welsh Government have announced that they are reverting to teacher-assessed grades, ditching any mitigation and allowing a significant level of grade inflation. As Guido noted this morning Sir Keir has been conspicuously silent on the Labour-run Welsh Government’s position on grades, and it was becoming a problem. Three of his MPs had broken ranks on the issue before the U-Turn came about.

The changes will apply to all A level, AS, GCSE, Skills Challenge Certificate and Welsh Baccalaureate grades. To be fair to the Labour-run administration in Wales, they only took four days to U-turn on this issue, whereas the SNP took a full seven. All eyes will now be on what Gavin Williamson will say at 16:00 for England…

Read the Welsh Education Minister Kirsty Williams’ full statement on the U-turn below:

“Working with Qualifications Wales and WJEC we have sought an approach which provides fairness and balances out differences in the standards applied to judgments in schools.

“Given decisions elsewhere, the balance of fairness now lies with awarding Centre Assessment grades to students, despite the strengths of the system in Wales.

“I am taking this decision now ahead of results being released this week, so that been is time for the necessary work to take place.

“For grades issued last week, I have decided that all awards in Wales, will also be made on the basis of teacher assessment

“For those young people, for whom our system produced higher grades than those predicted by teachers, the higher grades will stand.

“Maintaining standards is not new for 2020, it is a feature of awarding qualifications every year in Wales, and across the UK.

“However, it is clear that maintaining confidence in our qualifications whilst being fair to students requires this difficult decision.

“These have been exceptional circumstances, and in due course I will be making a further statement on an independent review of events following the cancellation of this year’s exams.

“Other Awarding Bodies across the UK are involved in determining the approach to vocational qualifications. This continues to be the case but it is important that I give assurance to GCSE, AS and A level student at the earliest opportunity.”