What can schools do about examination and test anxiety
This blog discusses how school staff can help students through exam time, looking at whole-school approaches and supporting individual needs.
Exams
Examining the examiners
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 …
What is it like to experience exam stress? A student perspective
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. …
11 things we know about marking and 2 things we don’t …yet
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 …
Positive steps
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 …
Understanding test anxiety
Test anxiety blog series: 1 Authors: Dr Rob Buck and Professor Kevin Woods Tests and exams in school inform teachers, parents, and students themselves about their academic progress and potential future pathways. But like any situation in which a person’s …
Evaluating new GCSEs in French, German and Spanish
Last year we committed to do further work to evaluate the new GCSEs in French, German and Spanish, and to consider whether there was a case for making an adjustment to the grading. There are several strands to this work …
New A level maths in 2019
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 …
Be prepared: GCSE and A level exam contingency day 2019
At Ofqual, and regardless of the weather, our minds are always on the summer. We’re either thinking about the summer exam series just gone or the one to come. Sometimes we’re thinking about the series after that. We’re not alone. …