Following a consultation, the Department for Education has set out its plans for how GCSEs and A level exams will be run next year and what schools will be expected to do if the Covid pandemic meant they had to be cancelled for a third year in a row.

The government has announced the outcome of its consultation on its contingency plans for exams today.

Here is everything you need to know.

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Could exams be cancelled next year?

The government has made it clear again today that it is “firmly committed to exams going ahead in summer 2022.”

However not so very long ago it had also been committed to the idea of exams going ahead in the summer 2021 before the scale of the Covid crisis led to it deciding that this was impossible.

Earlier this year when Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced that exams would not be going ahead in the summer as normal there were no alternative plans in place at the time.

For 2022 exams going ahead remains plan A but this time the government has a plan B.

How will exams take Covid disruption into account?

After a consultation run by Ofqual the government has confirmed that the following mitigations will be in place for next summer’s exams

• Students taking GCSEs in English literature, history, ancient history and geography will not need to cover the usual range of content in the exams - the exam boards have published information on their websites on how this will work for each of their specifications in these subjects.
• Students taking GCSEs in all other subjects will be given advance information about the focus of the content of the exams to support their revision
• Students taking AS and A levels will be given advance information about the focus of the content of the exams to support their revision
• Students taking GCSE mathematics will be given in their exams copies of formulae they would in other years have to memorise.
• Students taking GCSE physics and combined science will be given in their exams a sheet covering all the equations they might need to apply in the exams.

Exam boards are also publishing formulae and equation sheets to help students in GCSE maths and some GCSE science exams, giving students time to familiarise themselves with them before exams.

When will students get advance material of exam topics?

The Department for Education has said that advance information for GCSE and AS and A levels will be published no later than 7 February 2022.

However it has also said that it will decide whether the advance information should be published earlier by taking account of the level of disruption to students’ education being caused by the pandemic.

It will give at least a week’s notice if it decides exam boards should publish the information before that date.

The NAHT school leaders’ unions has previously criticised the plan to publish advanced material in February as being too late into the academic year.

What happens if exams are cancelled again?

If the government does decide to cancel exams then it plans to use teacher assessed grades (TAGs) again as in 2021.

The government has said today if exams are cancelled the Secretary of State would set out in a direction to Ofqual the government’s policy on how TAGs should be used to determine grades in summer 2022.

This direction would take account of the timing of the decision to cancel exams and any public health restrictions in place at the time

How will schools be expected to gather evidence for teacher assessed grades?

Schools have been told to assess pupils in exam-like conditions to provide evidence for TAGs in the event that Covid leads to exams being cancelled again next year.

The guidance says  that schools should plan assessment opportunities to a timetable that secures evidence which could be used to inform TAGs, including in the autumn term.

To build up evidence for these grades schools have been told students sitting GCSEs, AS and A levels and the Advanced Extension Award should be assessed under exam-like conditions wherever possible.

Although it says this could be do in the classroom rather than an exam hall.

 It adds that students

• should not know the questions in the assessment beforehand
• should work independently and without assistance (other than as required for a reasonable adjustment)
• should not have access to books or revision notes and the assessment should be timed and supervised

Could exams still go ahead in some parts of the country but not others?

In a word, no.

One of the issues of running assessment and exams during the Covid pandemic is that the level of disruption faced by pupils can vary from region to region and even from school to school and class to class.

However the department has said it plans to deliver TAGs through a single national approach if they end up being used.

It said that more than 80 per cent of respondents agreed with a proposal that if it proves necessary to cancel exams and implement TAGs in some parts of the country, exams should be cancelled for all students and the TAGs approach should be implemented nationally.

The guidance published today adds: “There were no responses which persuaded us that it would be acceptable or command public confidence to have different approaches to awarding grades for the same qualifications running in different parts of the country.

“We believe such an approach would lead to challenges about how different students should be assessed, for example if they lived in an area for which exams had been cancelled but attended a school in an area in which exams were going ahead, and vice versa”.

Do schools need new policies for producing TAGs?

Not at this stage. Ofqual has decided that schools should only be required to develop policies for the awarding of TAGs if exams are actually cancelled.

The consultation had proposed that exam centres should only develop policies for the awarding of TAGs if exams are definitely not going ahead, to avoid them diverting resources from other priorities.  More than two thirds of this respondents agreed with this.

The government have also said schools do not need to start working out TAGs unless it is announced that exams are cancelled.

What else do school leaders need now?

Heads have welcomed schools having a contingency plan in place.

Julie McCulloch the director of policy at the Association of School and College Leaders said that not to have one  “would risk a repeat of the chaos of the past two years.” 

But she has called on schools to now be given more support to minimise the workload around carrying out exam style assessments to ensure schools have evidence for TAGs.

She said: “This plan will mean considerable workload for schools and colleges. To mitigate the additional workload, the exam boards should produce banks of assessment questions that can be used flexibly by schools and colleges to construct exam-style papers.”