There are no plans to “switch off” the plan B exam contingency measures that schools are being asked to carry out in case exams have to be cancelled for the third year running because of Covid, the chief regulator has insisted.
In a speech at the Sixth Form Colleges Association conference earlier this month, which has been published today, Jo Saxton said she is “hugely sympathetic to how challenging operationally and emotionally for you and your students it is to ride both these horses, but there are no plans to turn off Plan B.”
Schools have been asked to carry out mock-style exams throughout the year in case exams are cancelled and schools are asked to carry out teacher-assessed grades (TAGs). However, education secretary Nadhim Zahawi has insisted that exams will go ahead as planned this year, despite ongoing disruption to learning in schools owing to the Omicron variant.
Dr Saxton added she is aware that some teachers would like the contingency plans to be removed, but said “the need to collect evidence of student performance in case exams don’t take place is important”.
She added: “It won’t surprise you that I can’t agree to turn off those arrangements.”
She also set out more detail on what schools and colleges can expect from the advance information on exams due to be published by exam boards on 7 February, how grading boundaries would be set, and how she sees Ofqual’s role in ensuring fairness in the system this year and in the future.
Here’s everything that you need to know:
Will advance information undermine the exams?
Dr Saxton said that exam boards are working to provide just enough information to aid revision without revealing the questions. She said this is to avoid turning exams “into short-term memory tests” rather than a way to assess students’ knowledge and abilities.
Dr Saxton said exam boards are working hard “in the interests of students” to provide advance information and regarded it as “an art rather than a science”, saying: “I’ve no doubt that some people will feel we haven’t gone far enough, and others will feel we have gone too far.”
Will advance information benefit more able students?
Dr Saxton responded to concerns around advance notice of exam topics focusing more on “high-tariff questions” that could benefit more able students.
She said: “Much of the advance information gives a steer on how to revise for higher-tariff questions, although not all of it.” She added that “higher tariff doesn’t necessarily mean harder content”.
Dr Saxton defended the approach and said to focus on low-tariff questions would be “nonsensical”.
She said: “It would be silly to publish a document that says something like: ‘You will be asked to identify the year in which the Versailles Treaty was signed, or the year in which Magna Carta was signed.’ Clearly, at that point, the exam would stop being an exam.”
She added: “We know that candidates from across all abilities and demographics gain marks across an exam paper and not only in the low-tariff questions. And we hope that the benefit of advance information will mean that 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.”
Will the grading system be fair for this year’s cohort?
Dr Saxton said that “there will be no standardisation model to determine students’ grades” and that exam grades for GCSEs and A levels would not be set by any “single statistical midpoint” between 2019 and 2021 grading.
Grading in 2022 will be set between the standards of 2019, when full exams were last sat before the pandemic, and the teacher-assessed grades (TAG) system in 2021.
She said: “As a check and balance, of course exam boards will use other evidence, including statistical evidence of how students were graded when exams were last taken, so that grade boundaries do, indeed, deliver this generous midpoint approach.”
Dr Saxton said that she understood concerns that universities may raise the grades on which offers are based if results this year are as “generous” as those in 2021.
But she added: “Our grading requirements will provide a safety net for this cohort and it is likely to mean that results overall are higher than in normal years.”
How will Ofqual police the system this year?
The regulator is working with subject specialists and assessment designers alongside exam boards to set out over 300 specifications of how advance information will work, said Dr Saxton.
She said that Ofqual will be consulting with students after the advance information is published on 7 February, and again once exams have been set, to monitor the process.
However, she asked students to “remember the positive intentions” behind the advance information, adding: “It represents a unique coming together of everybody across the qualification system to act in the interests of students.”
She said the system presents the regulator with “a novel and interesting challenge” whereby exam boards are accountable for producing “accurate” and “careful” advance information.
Dr Saxton said that Ofqual will not see exams before students, in line with previous years, and laid out how Ofqual keep exam boards in check by ensuring the quality and security of assessment papers.
She said: “Each year, the number of people that know the content of live papers before they are sat is very tightly controlled by exam boards, and that’s right. That’s key to fairness for students, and important to minimise the risk of any leaks.
What’s next for Ofqual?
Dr Saxton said she will spend the next few months visiting education settings and is open to hearing feedback about “the challenges faced in the qualification system”.
She said: “It’s only by hearing and responding to these challenges that I and we at Ofqual can improve how assessment and qualifications work.
“Some of these things that we’ll hear about, Ofqual can do something about. There are others that won’t be in our gift, but we can do our best to play our active part in the system that we regulate on behalf of students.”
