Blog The Ofqual blog

The new GCSE grade scale has been the subject of much debate in recent months. Why did we change it? That’s the question we’re being asked a lot this summer, as we await the first of the new grades. To …

Today we published a report showing the provisional entries for GCSE, AS and A levels in England this summer. We collected this data in April, so it’s not complete, but it does give a good guide to the sorts of …

As in previous years, we expect to see students letting off steam on social media...Some of these will be reported in the media, but that doesn’t necessarily mean there’s a problem...

We have said that exam boards will rely more heavily on predictions this year for the new qualifications. But how are the predictions generated? And what do we mean by prediction matrices?

Grade 9 is not the same as A*; it’s a new grade, designed to recognise the very highest performing students. So there will be fewer grade 9s than there are currently A*s. And in the first year grade 9 will be calculated arithmetically.

You may be familiar with the rules for setting A* in the current A levels: students must get enough UMS marks to achieve a grade A overall and achieve 90% or more of the UMS marks at A2. This rule …

We often talk about creating a level playing field for students taking their GCSEs, AS and A levels, regardless of which exam board they enter with. That’s our aim this summer, in both reformed and unreformed qualifications. Our priority is …

There are 3 myths we commonly hear about our work: GCSEs used to be criterion referenced, my school can’t improve because of Ofqual’s approach and there is a cap on the number of each grade awarded. Here's why they're not true.

None of these is true.

How Ofqual will make sure this year's A level students are not unfairly disadvantaged.