Official Statistics

Access arrangements for GCSE and A Level: 2015 to 2016 academic year

Access arrangements allow skills and knowledge to be demonstrated by candidates with disabilities, temporary illnesses or special educational needs.

Applies to England, Northern Ireland and Wales

Documents

Access Arrangements for GCSE and A Level: 2015 to 2016 academic year

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Tables - Access-arrangements for 2015-16 academic year

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Pre-release_access_list_Access_Arrangements_2016

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Details

Main findings

  1. There were 410,800 approved access arrangements, up 8% on the 2014 to 2015 academic year, continuing the trend of rising numbers over the past 5 years; most of the increase this year (62%) was in further education centres.
  2. 5,964 centres (79% of all centres) had approved access arrangements for one or more of their students.
  3. There were 230,400 approved requests for the most frequently granted access arrangement of 25% extra time (56% of all approved arrangements), a 13% increase compared with 2014 to 2015 academic year.
  4. The number of approved requests for modified papers has also increased, on 2014 to 2015 academic year, by 20% from 36,150 to 43,200.
  5. The most common type of modified paper in 2016 was non-interactive electronic question papers (eg PDF) (with 14,750 approved requests), an increase of 45% on 2015.

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Additional note

Ofqual has changed the name of its Official Statistics publication Enquiries about results for GCSE and A level to Reviews of marking and moderation for GCSE and A level. The next release of the publication is scheduled for 13 December 2016. The change of name was required to reflect recent changes in rules for reviewing candidate results which came into effect in August 2016. Ofqual made changes to the rules following two user consultations published in May and July 2016.

Updates to this page

Published 1 December 2016
Last updated 20 March 2017 + show all updates
  1. Updated attached PDF report, "Access Arrangements for GCSE and A Level: 2015 to 2016 academic year". Updated the figure of total number of centres. This change was needed as the existing figure included a few international centres from one awarding organisation and this shouldn't have been included. This amendment does not affect any statistics on the number of access arrangements.

  2. First published.

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