School head teachers have been warned by the government's head of exams that results will potentially plunge this year. Dr Jo Saxton, Ofqual’s Chief Regulator, today sent a letter to schools and heads in England saying grading is returning to pre-pandemic levels for A-Levels and GCSEs this summer.
This means that in general, the overall performance will be lower than last year, meaning hundreds of thousands of children will potentially get lower grades than they would have got had they sat the exams 12 months earlier. In the letter Dr Saxton warned: “I would like to remind you of the approach to grading in 2023 for GCSE, AS and A levels. Grading is returning to pre-pandemic standards, which means that your school or college’s headline results will be lower than they were in 2022.”
She explained there would be some mitigation meaning that the results would probably be similar to those in 2019. She added: “This means that a student who would have achieved a certain grade before the pandemic, should be just as likely to achieve that grade in 2023, even if their performance is a little weaker than that needed to secure the grade in 2019. Of course, it is not possible to predict where grade boundaries will be, because they change each year as the papers change, in terms of new questions as well as demand.”
For those vocational and technical qualifications that are similar in structure to GCSEs and A levels, with assessments taken at the end of the course, awarding organisations will also consider the grading approach used in GCSE and A levels. This is so that students are neither advantaged nor disadvantaged irrespective of what qualification type they take.
The results could have a big impact on those aiming to go to university, and Dr Saxton said that schools should act now to prepare parents for potentially lower results than they might otherwise have expected. She said: “I would ask for your support in managing their expectations and reassuring them that even if they don’t achieve their predicted grades there are still lots of options open to them.”
The letter adds that Technical Qualifications within T Levels will be awarded more generously in the first year of awards to reflect that these are new qualifications. 2023 will be the first year that Technical Qualifications in T Levels are based fully on exams, whereas some previously included teacher assessed grades in 2021. This means that the profile of results may look different in some subjects, and it will be important not to compare them with last year’s results.
