In a tight competition, A Level results were deemed U-turn of the year by our panel with 28.11 per cent of the vote. Many will remember the outcry in August after the Department of Education used an algorithm by Ofqual to predict grades, leading to huge disappointment among students. Gavin Williamson and the Ofqual soon apologised and decided that all A Level and GCSE results in England would be from then on be calculated by teacher assessments.
In at 25.87 per cent, our panelists felt that the Government’s position on free school meals was another big U-turn, followed by Sadiq Khan’s decision for London to have a lockdown and curfews, only to then fight for these to be avoided, and Keir Starmer in last place with his Brexit flip flopping. Either way, there was no stand out winner in this category, unlike some of our others.