AT LEAST three local schools are appealing to exam boards to investigate a number of A-level students' results amid national claims that marks were "fixed" to cut down the numbers clinching top grades, writes Education Reporter Jennie Dennett.

Lancaster Girls' Grammar School, Kendal's Queen Katherine School and Ulverston Victoria High School believe some of their students' grades may have been unfairly capped.

Pam Barber, the head teacher of Lancaster Girls', has appealed for an investigation into English marks, set by the AQA examining board after some girls achieving As throughout their

AS and A-level courses achieved Us (unclassified) grades in one exam

module - results she described as 'inconceivable'.

"I think our English results have been downgraded to stop too many people getting As," she said.

She believed it had meant some students missed out on university places but she did not want to put additional pressure on individuals by giving their names.

Meanwhile, UVS is asking AQA to investigate some history results and QKS has raised concerns about " bewildering" grades with exam boards in a number of subject areas.

Both schools stressed that pupils had not forfeited university places because of their grades.

The concern from local schools has arisen as teachers' associations representing both private and state schools accused government watchdog the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority (QCA) of putting pressure on examination boards to artificially lower the grades of brighter pupils.

The QCA itself denies any 'wrong-doing'.

QCA chairman Sir William Stubbs says that all it did was stress to exam boards that "A-level standards were to be maintained over time".

Exam boards had a particular challenge this year following A-level restructuring.

The exam is now divided into two parts with three modules each: the first, taken in the first year, gives students an AS pass; the second, known as A2 and taken in the second year, makes up the full A-level.

One exam board, OCR, has explained that grade boundaries for A2s were raised in almost every subject this year to compensate for high AS work, which was meant to be easier.

Setting grade boundaries according to performance is normal practice, but the growing band of critics believe the

boards decided to fail a set proportion

of students this year because of Government concern over grade inflation.

Suspicions have been particularly aroused where students have scored top grades in all their modules and uncharacteristically low marks for their coursework module - a pattern

repeated in the disputed results from local schools.

In a statement yesterday (Thursday), Education Secretery Estelle Morris categorically denied that there was any political interference in the workings of the QCA and the examining boards.

"The A-level is the gold standard of our qualifications and if there is any doubt that the standard is being devalued, we must act," said Ms Morris.

"These issues cannot and will not be left to fester."