The corruption foisted on the British education system by Labour's noxious combination of targets and school-based assessment continues. There should be no doubt in anyone's mind that this is their fault. Worried that the education system was meeting the needs of richer pupils with extensive, and at times expensive, parental support, they tried to even things up by means of "vocational" qualifications with imaginary equivalences to normal GCSEs, with targets for schools to meet and dire punishment if they didn't. People started to cheat to preserve their school's reputations and protect their jobs. At the same time, Blunkett's department forced schools to put up with the same atrocious behaviour he would condemn, by putting heavy financial penalties on anything they did to try to stop it.
The coalition government started to change this by getting rid of the controlled assessments and cutting down on unnecessary examinations, notably abolishing AS. However, this is taking time, and in the meantime the toxic blend of corruption and bullying continues.
The article is, of course, anonymous. The writer would probably never work again if he or she were to sign it. I have not named the schools in which I've seen this at first hand, some of them rated good or outstanding by Ofsted, because that would also lead to victimisation. I'm fortunate in that no-one is in a position to victimise me, or I'd probably have to keep quiet too. Teachers have families.
This must stop, and removing all school-based assessment is the only way to do it.