Correspondence

Letter to higher education admissions officers: arrangements for exams and assessments in 2023

Published 21 December 2022

Applies to England

Dear Admissions Officer,

On 30 November Ofqual and the Department for Education (DfE) confirmed final decisions for arrangements for exams and assessments in England in 2023. I wanted to write to you now that all arrangements are finalised to ensure you are fully aware of the assessment and grading arrangements in place for the qualifications that Ofqual regulates as you enter the 2023 offer-making round.

The arrangements for 2023 largely reflect normal, pre-pandemic arrangements, which you will be familiar with. In GCSE, AS and A level the usual arrangements for coursework will apply for 2023, and the full subject content as represented in qualification specifications can once again be sampled in exams and/or associated formal assessments. The DfE also confirmed that there will be no advance information this year, and a return to the usual assessment arrangements for all AS and A level subjects, and most GCSE subjects. There will be some support for students in GCSE mathematics, physics and combined science through the provision of revised formulae and equation sheets in the examinations.

There are no plans for adaptations to vocational and technical qualifications (VTQs) in this academic year, and so arrangements will return to normal.

A return to pre-pandemic grading in 2023

You will already be aware of Ofqual’s announcement of 29 September outlining the grading approach for summer 2023. Ofqual confirmed a return to pre-pandemic grading for GCSE, AS and A levels in 2023. This is what a number of you and your representatives told us would help you to return to the normal pattern of offer-making, and I know you will take this into account in your approach to admissions this year. It is in the interests of students, and those who serve them, to return to a pre-pandemic grading standard. This is what teachers, schools and colleges, employers and of course higher education institutions, best know and understand.

As set out in detail in that announcement, in taking this decision I recognised that students in the 2023 cohort have experienced some disruption. That’s why Ofqual will put in place some grading protection for students in 2023. Specifically, we will require the exam boards to put in place the same protection that was given for the first cohorts of students taking reformed GCSEs and A levels from 2017 onwards. In the reform context, this meant not disadvantaging students who might have performed less well because they were the first to sit new exams. This means that overall we are likely to see national results in line with those seen between 2017 and 2019.

The grading protection means, broadly speaking, a typical student who would have achieved an A grade in a particular A level before the pandemic will be just as likely to get an A next summer, even if their performance in the assessments is a little weaker in 2023 than it would have been before the pandemic.

In terms of the predicted grades used to inform your offer-making, we have been clear to schools and colleges that for 2023 teachers should use the familiar pre-pandemic standard as the basis for predicting their students’ grades. That familiarity should make it easier for teachers to generate predicted grades for their students that are aspirational but achievable, in line with UCAS guidance. We know that the more those predicted grades reflect the likely achievement of students the more this will support you to be more confident in your offer-making.

Of course, we don’t know at this point precisely what results will look like in particular subjects or specifications. Indeed, we can’t know this until entries have been made, exams have been sat and students’ work has been marked. Nevertheless, we expect that overall results in 2023 will be much closer to pre-pandemic years than results since 2020. What we also know, given the approach to grading adopted, is that national results in 2023 will be lower than in 2022.

Vocational and technical qualifications

In T Levels, we have asked awarding organisations to continue to take generous interpretations of the published grade descriptors in the first years of awards, to reflect the fact these qualifications are new.

For other VTQs taken in schools and colleges alongside or instead of GCSEs and A levels, there will be a return to pre-pandemic standards.

Some students were affected by late or incorrect vocational qualification results in summer 2022. On 15 December we published the actions we are taking to protect students from the risk of late VTQ results in 2023. The steps we are putting in place for 2023 will include a new results deadline by which point all eligible candidate results will be available to centres. A consultation on the deadline and associated procedures will be launched early in 2023.

Decisions taken by regulators in other jurisdictions

Ofqual is the regulator for qualifications for England. Our grading decisions relate only to those qualifications we regulate. Education is a devolved matter, and the regulators in other parts of the UK take separate decisions on their approach to grading. They have confirmed their approach for the qualifications they regulate next summer.

You will be used to dealing with students with qualifications taken across the UK and all over the world, many of which are designed and graded in different ways. I know that you will reflect on all the decisions taken about grading, as well as the long-standing differences in the structure of certain similarly named qualifications, to ensure students are treated fairly across jurisdictions.

I would be very happy to meet with you to discuss these matters in more detail early in 2023. Please don’t hesitate to contact my office if that would be helpful or welcome. In the meantime, I trust that this information has provided the clarity you need to support your admissions decisions. If you have any questions, please do contact us at strategicrelationshipsgq@ofqual.gov.uk.

Yours sincerely,

Jo Saxton PhD,

Chief Regulator