Changes to this year’s GCSEs and A-levels ‘will not make them easier for pupils’

CHANGES TO this year’s GCSE and A-level exams will not make them easier for more able pupils, the head of the Government exam regulator has said.

Because of the disruption to learning caused by the pandemic, pupils in England will be offered a choice of topics in some GCSE exams, such as English literature, history, ancient history and geography, as well as exam aids in the summer.

For subjects where a choice of topics is not provided, advance notice on the focus of exam content will be given in February to help with revision.

Jo Saxton, Ofqual’s chief regulator, said the release of advance information on the kinds of topics pupils will see in their exams would not put higher-ability pupils at an advantage.

Pupils will be given information on February 7 to help focus their revision to answer questions carrying more marks, whereas advance information will not be provided for simpler one or two-mark questions.

There have been concerns that by releasing the information in the spring term rather than earlier in the academic year the changes could exacerbate problems for pupils disadvantaged by Covid-19. But Ms Saxton said questions carrying more marks did not necessarily mean “harder content”, as pupils of any ability gained marks across a paper.

She said: “We hope that the benefit of advance information will mean students who suffered the most disruption, or those who are less able, may gain confidence to tackle elements of a paper that they might previously not have felt confident to try.”

Ms Saxton said giving pupils advance information about the topics covered in exams would have been unthinkable in normal times but the changes had been designed to make exams less daunting to pupils.

In 2020, the Government ditched an algorithm to determine grades for an assessment by teachers after thousands of pupils received grades well below what they had expected.