AN organisation that represents more than 1,300 North- East schools has called for a rapid investigation into allegations that some GCSE candidates may have been treated unfairly by exam boards.

Schools North East, the UK’s only school-led regional network, said any issues required “serious and swift investigation”.

Yesterday, The Northern Echo reported that St Aidan’s Church of England Academy, in the Eastbourne area of Darlington, has challenged its GCSE English results after a significant number of candidates who were expected to receive at least a C grade pass received a D grade fail.

St Aidan’s assistant principal, Stephanie Francome, accused the exam board of moving the goalposts mid-year because of political pressure from the Government to make GCSEs harder.

That was refuted by Education Secretary Michael Gove, who said the decision to change the grade boundaries was down to individual exam boards and was “fairly comparable”

with previous years.

Schools North East director Beccy Earnshaw said: “GCSEs are high stakes exams for both students and schools. Any issues that have occurred, therefore, require serious and swift investigation to ensure that all young people have been treated fairly within the system and are not being denied future opportunities as a result of last minute movement of the goalposts.”

Ms Earnshaw said the overall GCSE results for the North-East confirmed that the region maintained its position of having the highest overall rate of improvement at grades A to C of any region over the past ten years.

She said pass rates at the Government benchmark of five grade A to Cs, including English and maths, had risen from 51.1 per cent in 2002 to 66.8 per cent.

However, in line with national trends, there has been a 0.4 per cent fall from last year’s high of 67.2 per cent.

Ms Earnshaw welcomed the rise in young people studying single sciences and the slowing of the decline in students of modern foreign languages.

Helen Hayes, from the North East Chamber of Commerce, said the regional GCSE results “seemed to reflect the central actions to curb grade inflation and will help restore business confidence in the qualifications”.

She said GCSE students must now consider their options and that it was important that academic and vocational options, including apprenticeships, were considered.

She said: “Young people need to ensure they are equipped with the skills and workplace experience needed to secure jobs.”

To support young people interested in an apprenticeship, the chamber has launched necctraining.co.uk to provide information about the courses available.