A-level students in Northern Ireland receive grades - NI exams board CCEA has admitted there will be "anomalies" in some of the grades awarded - body admits they will be inundated with appeals

Tests were cancelled due to the coronavirus pandemic and calculated grades will be used instead.

They will be awarded based on a combination of teacher professional judgment and statistical modelling, the Council for the Curriculum, Examinations and Assessment (CCEA) has said.

But the NI exams board CCEA has admitted there will be "anomalies" in some of the grades awarded.

This morning CCEA chief executive Justin Edwards defended the system used by the NI exam board to adjust results this year.

Speaking to the BBC Mr Edwards said: "If we were to use teacher judgment on its own, the results for this year would have risen considerably".

In Northern Ireland, A-level grades were based on previous AS results, resit data and teachers' predicted grades for their students.

He also commended the work of teachers and principals who "committed to this process and gave us information and data in record time".

"I am eternally grateful for the education workforce of Northern Ireland."

Mr Edwards said predicted grades from teachers in previous years indicated an "over-confidence" in some pupils.

"Teachers are more likely to over-predict or be over-confident in the lower-grades, as you reach the C, D and E boundaries there is a higher degree of over- confidence, be that grammar or non-grammar schools.

"That over-confidence sometimes means that you have increased adjustment in those grades and if you have increased adjustment in those grades then sometimes people can perceive that as one school type or another."

Mr Edwards said that there will be anomalies and in those cases there is an appeal process to help deal with these.

In an email to principals on Wednesday, CCEA said it recognised there would be concern about some results.

It said it would "start contacting schools where we have seen anomalies in terms of judgements provided and the grade issued".

The Scottish Government performed a U-turn on Tuesday when it said it would use teachers’ predicted marks without a moderation system believed to favour those from better-off areas.

England’s Education Secretary Gavin Williamson has told pupils that results from their mock exams could replace their A-level grades.