Twenty-four pupils from Royal Wootton Bassett Academy received a grade D in the summer rather than the C they would have got if the boundary had stayed the same.

Last month, however, the High Court rejected the bid from school leaders, teachers' unions and councils to change the boundaries back to what they would have been.

The court ruled that although the results may have been unfair, they were not unlawful, blocking a change in about 10,000 sets of results.

Royal Wootton Bassett Academy headteacher, George Croxford, writes about why he decided to go to the High Court last year.

Imagine a land where they had the extraordinary situation whereby two students could sit the same exam, at the same time, in the same school, gain the same mark and yet one student gained a C grade and the other a D.

“Don’t be so ridiculous,” I hear you cry. “That couldn’t possibly ever happen, that would be so unfair!”

Yet sadly that is the exact situation which we ended up with last year.

The current exam system is set up to only allow a set percentage to pass at each level, so the grade boundaries have to move up and down.

Last summer we had the ludicrous situation where too many students gained the mark that would have given them a C or above. The exams authority (Ofqual) then looked at this and decided that, to uphold the integrity of the exam year on year, the grade boundaries had to move. If it was judged on the January boundaries the country would literally have had thousands of students achieving better than expected progress.

Ofqual, in their infinite wisdom, found out how many students were predicted Cs or above after Key Stage 2 and decided to move the grade boundaries to ensure the results were in line with those predictions.

Students who would have gained a C in January suddenly found themselves gaining a D just because they sat the exam in the summer.

In the January exams, more than 35% of students who sat the exam passed at a C. In the summer they allowed only 10% to pass with a C.

Then the situation got even madder because a neighbouring country had students who sat some of those same exams. They decided that this change was unfair and moved the grade boundaries back to the January levels, hence their students gained a C for the same mark in the same exam as others were given a D!

We have the ludicrous situation of a government demanding better than expected progress through their inspectors (Ofsted) but when it is evidenced through improved exam performance, their exam authority (Ofqual) move the grade boundaries to ensure that showing that progress is not possible.

Sadly, this situation is not made up, nor is it fictional, but it actually happened last summer in GCSE English.

We then had the government tell Ofqual to investigate what had gone on and so the very people who had ordered the unfair practice were asked to investigate how it happened!

Yes, it truly was that bad.

And the worst thing about it is that literally thousands of individual students were unfairly treated and given the grade below the one they would have gained in January. We found ourselves in a situation where a child in Wales gained a C for the same mark, in the same exam, from the same board that gave a child in England a D.

We have an Education Secretary who chooses to radically change things in primary schools and tell them that they have new Spelling, Punctuation & Grammar (SPAG) tests in Key Stage 2. Teachers are left in the dark as to what weighting of the overall English mark these will count for, alongside the Reading and Writing, which is also assessed. They gave one sample to schools in December and that was all they had to work on. Then suddenly, in February, with three months to go until the tests, they decided that they won’t be any part of the overall English mark and will be reported separately! How on earth are teachers, schools and children supposed to know what to do?

The GCSE as a qualification may not be perfect but at least it tests the skills likely to be used in life through modular exams, controlled assessments and a small terminal exam.

The proposed shift back to the 1960s and 70s with O Level style terminal three-hour exam papers will do nothing to help give our future entrepreneurs and workers the skills necessary to succeed in the modern world.

How will one paper be able to test students of all abilities without being so hard that a student of moderate to low ability will be able to answer almost nothing on the paper?

Surely our education system has to be about giving students knowledge, skills and understanding to be able to succeed in an ever changing world? We have to develop qualifications that will test our students’ ability to learn and develop and adapt not just test their knowledge. We have to develop a curriculum to ensure that students leave schools ready to give to society and be responsible members of the community. We have to have a clear vision of the young adult we want to produce, the values that person should have and then work out how we are going to produce them.

Within our core values would have to be fair play, hard work, commitment and dedication.

We always tell students that hard work brings just reward. Sadly, last summer for thousands of 16-year-olds that proved to be untrue and our system let them down badly.

Let us hope that common sense prevails in future and that the government actually listen to the profession. Let us hope that as teachers we can know the challenges ahead and do not have moving targets and continual government interference.

Teachers can then ensure every student in every classroom feels valued, safe and is given the chance to thrive and maximise success.