Chief Regulator and Chief Executive Officer of Ofqual from 2012 to 2016.
I am sure many of you will have seen comments in the media over the past few days about the benefits or costs, practicalities or need for students to memorise poetry as part of their secondary school education. This debate …
I hope many of you reading this blog are already aware of the research programme we are undertaking to reassure ourselves, the exam boards, students and other stakeholders regarding the level of demand and difficulty across the four new Ofqual …
With the end of term fast approaching, I have been reflecting on the first tranche of new GCSEs, AS and A levels. We have accredited 93 out of 124 specs, covering all subjects.
You may have seen stories in the media recently about GCSE, AS and A level marking. I have been thinking about these and how to best enable people to form a fair view of the quality of marking. First of …
Understandably, the GCSE English results have attracted the largest share of the headlines overnight and this morning. The 1.9% drop in grades A* - C in this important subject looks significant. And we are seeing that a minority of schools …
The media has made much of the ‘first overall drop in A level results for 30 years’. It seems quite a story, at first sight, but I feel I should add a voice of reason. The fall in passes at …
A level results come out next week, with GCSEs the week after, and many thousands of young people and their families are waiting in nervous anticipation. In recent years, we at Ofqual have made a conscious decision to use this …
It’s been a week since we released our consultation on the reform of remaining subjects at GCSE and A level. Commentary on social media and in the news suggests that many still believe we want to ‘scrap’ qualifications in the …
Practical work and experimentation is at the heart of science. It matters to science students, their teachers and their future universities and employers. But A level students do not always have the chance to do enough of it. Practical work …
Students will be sitting exams for some new GCSEs in summer 2017. We want to be clear with them, ahead of 2017, about the new grading system and the levels of performance expected.