A grammar school headmaster has slammed this year's A-level grading system as "cruel and brutal" as many students are left without university places.

Ken Moffat, head of Simon Langton Grammar School for Boys in Canterbury, says the "fiasco" has left anger running high amongst Years 13s, many of whose grades have plummeted from their initial predictions.

Among them was one pupil who saw his predicted C drop to a U.

With summer exams scrapped as a result of the coronavirus outbreak, students were instead graded using marks predicted by their teachers - with these predictions sent to exam boards to be standardised in an attempt to ensure this year's grades are in sync with last year's results.

But it has been revealed that exam boards downgraded almost 40% of these submitted marks during the moderation process.

The government also made a last-minute decision allowing students to appeal their results if they were lower than their mock exam grades, but confusion continues to surround this process.

Mr Moffat has criticised the way the process has been dealt with, adding it is "unfair" to grade students based on the performance of their predecessors.

"Many students are finding themselves with no university offers at all..."

"For a generation that has already suffered so much this year, this is just the final, careless kick in the teeth," he said.

"We have five subject departments where students have seen their outcomes lowered by three grades. That is unacceptable on any level or model and seems to simply focus on the results in that particular department last year.

"This year’s cohort is our brightest, and smallest, for at least 10 years.

"However, in one instance, a student we have known and taught for seven years had his grade changed from a predicted C to a U.

"That is just cruel, brutal and cannot be defended whatsoever."

Describing this year's results day as "strange and frustrating", Mr Moffat says he is confident pupils' grades would have been higher than those generated by exam boards, had the exams gone ahead as usual.

"How can a computer decide over a school whether a student has the bare minimum for a borderline pass?" he added.

"Eighteen of our students have managed to make it to Oxbridge, despite this whole fiasco, but many students are finding themselves with no university offers at all."

But Mr Moffat says it is "incredibly difficult" for teachers to advise pupils on what to do next, "given the fact that the government is back-tracking and U-turning almost hourly".

"As a centre, we do not know yet how we can appeal or suggest that mock grades can count instead as the Education Secretary - at the time of writing - has suggested at the 11th hour," he continued.

"I have never seen levels of anger amongst students and parents on any other results day that compare with today, and it is all focused on the government."

His comments are echoed by Paul Pollard, deputy head teacher at the nearby Simon Langton Girls' Grammar School, who called this a "time of unprecedented uncertainty and confusion".

"While the majority of our students will have gained the places they have been working for, there is still a cloud of uncertainty of what could, and in numerous cases should, have been with their results," he said today.

For more coverage of A-level results day across Canterbury, Herne Bay and Whitstable, click here.

News from our universities, local primary and secondary schools including Ofsted inspections and league tables can be found here.

Read more: All the latest news from Canterbury