Exam board boss Andrew Hall has put his retirement plans on hold to help with this year’s significant qualification reforms.

Mr Hall (pictured), the chief executive of AQA, will stay in the role for eight more months while the exam board searches for a suitable successor.

The chief executive will stay at the helm as thousands of students across the country sit new GCSEs in English and maths - graded from 9 to 1 - and new AS and A levels in 13 subjects this summer.

In April last year, AQA announced that Mr Hall would retire from full-time work at the end of 2016 and recruitment for his successor would start imminently. 

Mr Hall, who joined the awarding body in 2010, had originally planned to retire last month to spend more time with elderly relatives that needed his support.

But he will now continue to lead AQA until August this year - when the results of the new GCSE and A-level qualifications are released.  

‘Significant year for exams’

An AQA spokeswoman told TES: “The recruitment of our new chief executive is taking slightly longer than expected.”

She added: “As 2017 is going to be a very significant year for exams, Andrew has kindly agreed to put his retirement plans on hold and stay on until August.”

In October, AQA announced that they would no longer offer A levels in archaeology, history of art and statistics because of the small uptake, difficulties finding examiners and problems establishing grade boundaries.

The decision followed government reforms to A levels that have required new syllabuses in all subjects.

A number of petitions were launched to save the subjects, and last month, Pearson announced that it would run the history of art and statistics qualifications.

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