Sketch: GCSE row descends into grade-A nonsense Today, MPs asked executives from Ofqual why many pupils sitting GCSEs this summer got grades that were much lower than expected, particularly in English Language. Sadly, the MPs didn't get far, because most of the answers consisted of unfathomable jargon. For the listener it was baffling. You spent ages trying to work out what the executives meant, then, just when you thought you'd grasped it, they said something entirely opaque. It was like stumbling through mist into a bog, eventually struggling out, only to tumble down an unseen ravine. The main culprit was Glenys Stacey, Ofqual's chief regulator. Facing difficult questions, she gave even more difficult answers. They featured "cohort changes," "national outcomes," "route effects," "linear approaches," "scrutiny programmes," and, my favourite, "the English suite" (maybe it's what English teachers sit on in the staff room). Here, verbatim, is a sample of Ms Stacey's views on the grading controversy. There are several unknowns. There are more unknowns than there is when we've got a stable qualification, or than there are at the end of a qualification. So the unknowns are these, for example: the strength of the correlation between the units, which strongly influences, actually, how unit outcomes aggregate to these subject outcomes... Her voice didn't help. It was a whining, scraping monotone. Imagine the sound of a cat sliding slowly down a very tall window. Cath Jadhav, Ofqual's acting director of standards, joined in the fun. We don't know at the point we're making individual unit entries, how that translates into unit-level performance. Or how it translates into English. Be interesting to see what grade a GCSE pupil would get for writing an essay in language like that. "In Romeo & Juliet, two juvenile units of conflicting familial cohorts utilise a non-linear approach to aggregating matrimonially, resulting in an unsatisfactory outcome." And perhaps when a pupil can't answer a question, he or she should write, "This is an unknown." There was the odd glimmer of intelligibility. Some of the marking in January's preliminary exams had been "generous." Pupils would be offered resits. There had been "no political interference." Of the MPs, Pat Glass (Labour, North West Durham) seemed particularly anxious. This wasn't merely a matter of "alphabetical numbers on a piece of paper," she explained. Children who get five A-C grades are less likely to get divorced, less likely to get cancer, less likely to end up in prison or homeless... So think on, Ofqual. If you don't raise these children's alphabetical numbers, you'll ruin the marriages they haven't even embarked on yet. And you're definitely footing the bill for their healthcare, legal costs and rent. The session petered out. Perplexity reigned. Will we ever make sense of what happened with this year's marking? I fear that's another unknown.