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 …
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. …
Some of you will remember the announcement we made in August 2018, that we were allowing exam boards to award an exceptional grade 3-3 on the higher tier of GCSE combined science, along with a full-width safety net grade 4-3. …
GCSE, AS and A level exams finished in late June, and schools and colleges are now nearing the end of term. But what happens to students’ scripts once the exam is over? Here’s a brief guide to marking, who the …
When asked to think of examiners marking scripts, many people still tend to think of them sitting at a desk with a pile of envelopes from schools and colleges, gradually working through each one in turn. In some subjects, that …
This week we’re addressing some of the common questions and concerns posted in response to our recent Facebook updates and blogs. ‘New GCSEs are very hard’ We have seen quite a few comments about new GCSEs being ‘too hard’, or …
During the first half of this year we carried out research to evaluate the expected difficulty of exam boards’ sample GCSE maths papers developed as part of the current reforms and their approach to the assessment of mathematical problem solving. …
On Wednesday this week I gave a briefing to journalists about some of the trends that we might expect to see in this year's A level and GCSE results given provisional entry data and known changes to qualifications. A number …
Introduction A successful qualification reflects the achievements of its holder. It signifies the attainment of a specific set of skills. Those who rely on the qualification (for example, colleges or universities making admissions decisions, or employers deciding who to employ) …
We are aware that a petition is circulating suggesting that the new GCSE drama course contains more written elements than practical elements and calls on others to object; We want GCSE Drama to contain more practical elements than written.i I …
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