Exam boards have been instructed to make adjustments to grading standards for three GCSE subjects for this summer’s results.
Adjustments to standards will be made for computer science, French and German, the exam regulator Ofqual announced today.
Ofqual said it still expects overall GCSE results to be similar to summer 2023 as marking and grading continue to happen as normal this summer.
The watchdog said its research into computer science grading standards, since the GCSE was introduced in 2012, suggests that “standards may have become slightly more stringent through the period from 2014 to 2019”.
The regulator has decided to require exam boards to consider the research results when setting grade boundaries this summer for computer science, and award more generously at grades 9, 7 and 4.
GCSE grading standards for languages
Ofqual previously opted in 2019 to better align grading standards in French and German with Spanish. This was interrupted by pandemic grading, but Ofqual required exam boards to award more generously grade 9, 7 and 4 in summer 2023.
For this summer, exam boards will be required to make positive adjustments at grades 9, 7 and 4 for GCSE German, and grades 7 and 4 for GCSE French.
Julie McCulloch, director of policy at the Association of School and College Leaders, welcomed Ofqual’s announcement, but added: “Going forward, we will continue to argue for greater adjustment so that GCSE grades in modern languages are comparable with grades in other English Baccalaureate subjects.
“Currently pupils are too often left incorrectly thinking that their ability in modern languages is not as high as in other EBacc subjects. In the meantime, though, we hope that this change will provide encouragement to students and teachers of modern languages.”
Computer science grading standards
Ofqual researchers who looked at computer science standards said the changes between 2014 and 2019 were unlikely to have been detectable by senior examiners in individual years, but may have cumulated in “a more substantive change”.
The analysis indicated that most of the change in standards occurred between 2014 and 2017, when there was a large increase in entry to the subject, Ofqual said.
This change was not a failure of awarding organisations but a consequence “of the changes to the qualification and the context in which it was operating during this period of time”, Ofqual concluded.
Researchers also looked at the possible impact that a change in grading standards would have on the performance necessary to achieve grade 7 or 4.
They concluded that changing the grading standards slightly would have a “limited impact” on the skills and knowledge students would need to demonstrate for these grades.
But any larger changes would start to have “undesirable consequences” for the skills students are expected to demonstrate.
‘Many changes’ to computer science GCSE
A GCSE in computing was first introduced by exam board OCR with a pilot award in 2011 and the first proper GCSE awarded in 2012.
The Department for Education published a national curriculum for computing in 2013, and in 2014 computer science was added to the EBacc.
Computer science specifications were reformed, along with those of all GCSEs, in 2015. These specifications were first available for teaching in 2016.
GCSE computer science exams were also updated when exams returned post-Covid in 2022, with questions assessing students’ knowledge of programming skills.
As a result, Ofqual said that in a relatively short time “computer science has undergone many changes in terms of its content and assessment structure”.
It added that the subject has also seen big changes in the size and make-up of the exam cohort.
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