THE headteacher of one of Bolton’s top schools has called for the exams watchdog Ofqual to be scrapped and replaced with an independent body following last year’s GCSE debacle.

Bolton School boys’ division head Philip Britton said such a move would be one of a number of ways of improving the examining process in light of what happened last summer.

This week headteachers nationally this week raised concerns that bright teenagers could miss out on places at the UK’s top universities due to last summer’s GCSE English controversy.

A row broke out over English grades, with school leaders saying that tens of thousands of teenagers unfairly received lower-than-expected grades after the scoring boundaries were changed between January and June.

And Mr Britton — whose school was top in Bolton for its GCSE results with 99 per cent of boys posting five or more top grades last summer — has called for urgent reform.

He said the problem was a clash between two examining ideologies.

For example, if more people pass their driving tests, instructors and learner drivers are praised for being better at meeting the required standard. But tests can also perform another function — identifying the best people in a year group.

He said: “The first type of test has no issue with more and more people getting A grades, since it just means students and teachers are doing well.

“The second sees more A grades as reducing standards.

“Since this conflict has not been resolved and because the standards agenda is strong politically there will almost certainly this summer be depressing of grades and so students will not get the grade they might have done for the same work last year.”

He has called on Bolton’s MPs to raise the issue.

In a letter he writes: “Some senior figures in Ofqual are in post that were also in post in 2002. Might they not learn, as we wish students to, from their experiences?” Mr Britton said changes could be made to improve the system, which he believes would include replacing Ofqual with a high status education commissioner.

He said: “This appointment should be of the same standing as the governor of the Bank of England.

“Interest rates matter to the country, so they have been taken out of the political process and are set and monitored by a high status appointment advised by the very best experts on the monetary policy committee.

“If exams and their standards really mattered a similar high status system for educational standards would exist outside the political process.

“Ofqual is very definitely not that system,” Mr Britton said.

He suggested that subject panels led by professional bodies could be set up, which would include educationalists, researchers and business people, to define the content that is being tested in exams, and the commissioner would find the best way to examine that content.

The High Court ruled recently that last summer’s grades were legal but unfair.

Mr Britton said: “When exactly did it become acceptable for students to be found by the High Court to have been treated unfairly by the educational process?”