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.
Reflecting on recent interest in the comparability of GCSEs and International GCSEs, this blog provides further information about the two types of qualification and how they operate in England.
Running exams is a tough job and one that requires all-year-round effort. Ofqual has been in discussions with exams officers since last summer to find ways we can help them run a smooth, incident-free series.
This latest blog in our series on test anxiety offer strategies which teachers might find useful to help reduce their students’ experiences of exam anxiety.
This blog discusses how school staff can help students through exam time, looking at whole-school approaches and supporting individual needs.
While students are getting ready to take their exams this summer, exam boards are also busy, completing their examiner recruitment and finalising their arrangements for the series. This is no mean feat. Last summer alone, 63,000 examiners were needed to …
Test anxiety blog series: 2 Authors: Tamsin McCaldin, Kerry-ann Brown and Dr Jo Greenwood With recent changes to exams in England, there has been increased media interest into exam stress and what that might mean for students working towards exams. …
An enormous amount of work and research has been conducted on marking in recent years, including many contributions by Ofqual to ensure evidence-based regulation. Here is a summary of what we know, and some things we’re looking to find out …
As the summer exams approach we may expect to see, as in previous years, stories about students experiencing test anxiety. Nobody likes to hear of students being anxious and, like others, we want to play our part in helping young …