Heads oppose plan to return to 'Gold Standard' exams Vince Burke, senior vice principal of All Saints Church of England Academy, in Plymouth, and a member of the NAHT executive committee, said: "Do we really want a situation where a [university] candidate waits two years to find out that they are a D in one of their subjects? I don't think ten exams, across five or six days at the end of two years is the most effective way to assess what students have learnt. Dr William Richardson, general secretary of the Headmasters and Headmistresses Conference of leading independent schools, said universities valued the evidence of attainment provided by AS grades and they should be kept but reformed. "Examinations and resits litter the school timetable and need to be rationalised," he said. The exam season should be confined to May and June and January AS and A2 examinations phased out. AS level resits could take place just once, in the summer following the first sitting. Brian Lightman, the general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, said it would oppose scrapping AS levels. "They focus work in lower sixth and enable students to take a broader range of courses and then drill down in their final year, dropping their weakest subject," he said.