In a special weekend edition of the Tes news podcast, we discuss plans unveiled by exams regulator Ofqual this week designed to ensure that GCSEs and A levels are fair for students sitting them in 2022, following extensive disruption to learning caused by the coronavirus pandemic.
To analyse the implications, exams reporter Catherine Lough and senior writer Grainne Hallahan are joined by expert guests, including education journalist and Teacher Tapp co-founder Laura McInerney, general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders Geoff Barton, AQA chief executive Colin Hughes, and chief executive of the Chartered College of Teaching Dame Alison Peacock.
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Earlier this week, Ofqual and the Department for Education released plans for next year’s exams, which included optionality in some GCSE subjects, and advance notice of exam topics for all A-level subjects and some GCSEs where optionality is not available.
Ofqual’s plans for GCSE and A-level exams in 2022
We also learned that grade boundaries will be closer to those in pre-pandemic 2019 rather than in 2020 and 2021, which is expected to lead to the lowest grade levels since the last set of public exams in 2019.
We discuss whether the mitigations put in place will be enough to compensate for students’ differential learning loss, and some of the issues around students having more choice in GCSE English literature, history and geography.
And we debate the merits of Ofqual and the DfE’s Plan B if exams are cancelled - the return of teacher-assessed grades, or TAGs, and whether the “tighter guidance” around these would mean less stress and workload for teachers and pupils.
