All posts tagged: aqa

More strikes set for England’s largest exam board

More strikes set for England’s largest exam board

Hundreds of staff at exam giant AQA will strike for four more days over an ongoing pay row. Around 400 members of Unison will walk out on Friday after AQA leaders refused to meet for talks to discuss an alleged 10 per cent real-terms cut to staff wages over the last five years. The union is calling for pay restoration, which it previously said would require a 7.3 per cent rise this year. AQA issued what it described as a “generous” 5.2 per cent average increase instead. Unison warned the action could cause delays to students receiving their results this summer – but the exam board claimed the series will still be delivered “smoothly”. Walkouts at AQA HQ Assessors, exam paper authors and customer service staff will take part in the strikes from June 5 to 8 across three AQA sites, including its Manchester headquarters, as well as its offices in Guildford and Milton Keynes. The dates have been chosen to disrupt training for examiners planned to take place this weekend. It follows three days …

Photographers removed from GCSE paper over website images

Photographers removed from GCSE paper over website images

AQA deletes photographers’ names from exam after images ‘not appropriate for learners’ found on their websites AQA deletes photographers’ names from exam after images ‘not appropriate for learners’ found on their websites More from this theme Recent articles England’s biggest exam board has scrubbed the names of two photographers from one of its GCSE assessments over concerns their websites contain images that “may not be appropriate” for students. In an email to schools last week, AQA announced that references to Sam Taylor-Johnson and Tim Walker in questions for an art and design paper had been removed to “protect” pupils. One of the pages contains a video of a fully-naked man, while the other has photographs of models appearing to simulate sex. Teacher flagged the issue An AQA spokesperson said: “We recognise that the photographers are distinguished artists in their field, but some of their content may not be appropriate for GCSE students.” Both photographers were referenced in questions in this year’s externally set assessment for GCSE art and design. The papers are usually shared with …