Following the UK Government's decision to close schools and not go ahead with this summer’s exams, the government has announced more details of how grades will be awarded this summer.
Please click here to view the UK Government's full press release.
The UK Government have also published a guidance page which answers many important questions. Please click here to view this.
Here are the main points from the government's announcement:
- Regulators will develop and set out a process that will provide a calculated grade to each student which reflects their performance as fairly as possible, and will work with us and the other exam boards to ensure this is consistently applied for all students.
- Exam boards will be asking teachers, who know their students well, to submit their judgement about the grade that they believe the student would have received if exams had gone ahead.
- To produce this, teachers will be asked to take into account a range of evidence and data including performance on mock exams and non-exam assessment. Clear guidance on how to do this fairly and robustly will be provided to schools and colleges soon.
- Exam boards will then combine this information with other relevant data, including prior attainment, and use this information to produce a calculated grade for each student, which will be the best assessment of the work they have put in.
- Regulators and exam boards will be discussing with teachers’ representatives before finalising the approach, to ensure that it’s as fair as possible. More information will be provided as soon as possible.
- The aim is to provide these calculated grades to students before the end of July.
- In terms of a permanent record, the grades will be indistinguishable from those provided in other years.
- We’ll also aim to ensure that the distribution of grades follows a similar pattern to that in other years so that this year’s students aren’t disadvantaged.
- Students will be able to appeal their grades if they don’t believe the right process has been followed.
- There will also be an option to sit exams early in the next academic year for any students who wish to. Students may also choose to sit exams next summer.
The exam boards have promised they will be working tirelessly to make sure young people who were due to take exams this summer still achieve the qualifications they need to progress to the next stage of their lives – and that all the hard work pupils and teachers have already put in is properly rewarded.
We’re here to support you and we’ll share new details as soon as we get them from the regulators and government.