Today the exams regulator Ofqual and the Department for Education have revealed key details on long-awaited plans for GCSEs and A levels in 2022.

Here’s the latest information on what assessment will look like next year:

News: GCSE grades next year to be lower than 2020 or 2021

A levels 2021: Results at a glance

Ofqual: Exam grading plans to be announced next month

Ofqual’s plans for GCSEs and A levels in 2022

1. Grades will be lower than in 2020, but higher than 2019

Ofqual announced today that grade distributions will be pitched at a midway point between pre-pandemic levels of 2019 and results in 2021.

They will be lower than both years when teacher assessment was used in 2020 and 2021 following the cancellation of exams, but higher than those for the 2019 cohort.

2. Ofqual aims to get back to pre-pandemic grading levels in two steps

Chief regulator Jo Saxton said Ofqual’s “aim is to return to a pre-pandemic grade profile”.

But she adds that “we don’t think it would be fair on 2022’s students to do it all in one go, given the disruption they have experienced”.

“We will aim, therefore, to return in broadly two steps.”

Dr Saxton says exam boards will use prior attainment data as a starting point to align subject standards, as in any other year, and that these will be based on an average of the 2019 and 2021 results for each subject.

But she added that grade boundaries for each specification will be set by the senior examiners after they have seen students’ work.

She said the “exact position” of boundaries could vary by subject and grade, and that Ofqual could not be “precise” on this at the moment because schools have not submitted entries yet.

3. No new top grade in 2023

Ofqual said there would be no new top grade at A level in 2023, with the aim instead to return grading distributions to pre-pandemic levels at this point.

As revealed by Tes, Ofqual previously put out a contract to tender suggesting that a new top grade at A level could be introduced after 2022 to tackle concerns about grade inflation, although the tender added that this was “likely to cause anxiety and uncertainty”.

Ofqual said there will be no grading scale changes in 2023. 

Watch below: Exam changes explained

4. How teacher-assessed grades will work if exams are cancelled

Ofqual and the DfE opened a two-week consultation today on contingency plans if exams do not go ahead.

Teachers will once again use teacher-assessed grades in this eventuality, as schools are already familiar with the process, but Ofqual has said it would advise teachers to use assessments that already take place during the school year as a basis for these wherever possible - for example, mock exams or coursework. 

Students should be assessed on all the content they have been taught but not on topics they have not covered, as in 2021. The grading standard used would also be different if exams did not go ahead --TAGs would not use grade boundaries pegged between 2021 and 2019.

Ofqual says it doesn’t want students to worry that every piece of work they do will go towards their final grade, and says they should be told in advance about which assessments will be used for TAGs.

The assessment process for TAGs should not take longer than an exam series in the subject.

The final guidance on this will be released shortly after the October half-term.

5. Exam mitigations for 2022

If exams do go ahead as planned, GCSE English literature, history, ancient history and geography students will have a choice of topics in their exam.

For other subjects where optionality is not available, students will have advance notice of exam topics to focus their revision by no later than 7 February 2022. In the event of further disruption to schooling caused by the pandemic, this information could be released earlier.

In GCSE maths, students will be provided with formulae sheets, and they will be able to use equation sheets in GCSE physics and combined science. 

The same adaptations will be available for GCSE maths and English language in the autumn series next year.

For students sitting the autumn series 2021, the grading standard will mirror the results profile of this summer. 

6. Teachers should think about 2019 results when predicting Ucas grades

Teachers are advised to use the 2019 grading profile when predicting Ucas university admissions grades this year - but to bump up borderline students to the higher grade.

“Teachers this term will be predicting the grades their students will receive in summer 2022 for use on their higher education applications,” Dr Saxton said.

“In line with Ucas guidance, many students will already have been given an indication of their predicted grades by their teachers.

“The Ucas guidance suggests that predicted grades should be aspirational but achievable and the guidance considers the risks of inflating predicted grades as well as the risks of suppressing them.

“For 2022, we recommend that teachers use the familiar 2019 standard as the basis for predicting their students’ grades, giving borderline students the benefit of any doubt. So if a teacher believes a student is likely to be on the borderline between 2 grades, they predict the higher one.”

7. Results days are back to normal

Results days will be held over two weeks as usual, with A-level results released on 18 August and GCSEs on 25 August. 

This year both set of exams results were announced in the space of three days in the same week.