Ok.
1. Nobody except some of the more ranting press suggested opening schools for exams. The exams were cancelled by the government in March.
2. The government (actually Ofqual) devised an algorithm which was supposed to ‘standardise’ centre assessed grades. We all know now that it introduced an unfair bias which favoured small classes and children in independent schools and undervalued the achievement of bright kids in large, historically underperforming school. The objections came from all sectors of the community, including parents, schools and unions.
3. The problem with mocks is that there’s no standard practice in schools, so mock results are not comparable. Some schools only do one exam paper, some two or three; some mark down and others don’t; some do them in November before the course is finished and others do them in the spring term and test the whole syllabus. It had stuff all to do with teachers complaining.
4. Teachers did not ‘set grades’. Schools were given detailed advice on how grades should be assessed. Teachers had some input into the the calculation, but the final grades were assessed and submitted by the CENTRE - that is, the school - not by teachers. The centre-assessed grades were calculated in May, well before anyone had any idea that there would be a problem with the algorithm. It is true that teachers erred on the generous side, but that was at least partly because it is nigh on impossible to guess which, if any students, would get something badly wrong (misread a question, turn over two pages and miss out questions, have a panic attack etc) under exam conditions.
4a. It wasn’t ‘guesswork’. It was a very careful assessment based on evidence following detailed instructions from the government and Ofqual.
5. There is indeed the option to do the exams in the Autumn. What’s the problem?
Now please tell me which part of this gives you cause to blame teachers or teaching unions?