Executive Director, Standards, Research and Analysis, Ofqual
For many years there has been a November GCSE series which provides an opportunity for students to resit English language and maths. It’s mainly for students who didn’t get the results they were aiming for previously, and it is only …
From time to time we see suggestions that one exam board’s GCSE is easier than another, most often because one board has a higher percentage of students achieving high grades. I’d like to explain why simply comparing the grade profiles …
Starting this September, hundreds of thousands of learners will begin studying reformed Functional Skills qualifications (FSQs) in English and maths, offered by a number of different awarding organisations. At levels 1 and 2 these qualifications are used in apprenticeships and …
This is the first year that almost all GCSE students have taken reformed exams and over 99 per cent will get results that are all 9 to 1 grades. Our latest blog looks at what to expect from an Ofqual perspective when results are published on Thursday.
Next Thursday, AS and A level results are released. If you’re counting down the days, here is an update on some of the issues that have arisen over the summer, and a few things to bear in mind when results …
What happens once GCSE and A level exams have finished? An immense amount of work to mark and grade the papers that learners have completed.
In February and March year 11 students from over 300 schools in England took part in the third National Reference Test (NRT) in English and maths. This blog explains how the NRT evidence will be used when the exam boards set grade boundaries in GCSE English language and maths this summer.
Making sure that qualifications are fair requires careful design, analysis and evaluation of all aspects of qualification delivery. Fairness sits at the heart of our work and is something we are thinking about all the time.
Around England, a sample of schools are about to take the third annual National Reference Test (NRT). This test provides a valuable and unique source of evidence about the performance of year 11 students in English language and maths. From …
For some years, maths has been the largest entry A level in England. In 2018 around 90,000 students took A level maths, with just over 15,000 also taking A level further maths. The introduction of the new A level was …