Official Statistics

Background information for special consideration in GCSE, AS and A level: summer 2023 exam series

Published 30 November 2023

Applies to England

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This publication is available at https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/special-consideration-in-gcse-as-and-a-level-summer-2023-exam-series/background-information-for-special-consideration-in-gcse-as-and-a-level-summer-2023-exam-series

Purpose

This release presents figures on the number of special consideration requests for GCSE, AS and A levels submitted by schools and colleges to exam boards for exams and non-examination assessments taken in the 2023 summer series.

Geographical coverage

This report presents data on special consideration requests made in England. Four exam boards currently offer GCSE, AS and A level qualifications in England:

  • AQA Education (AQA)

  • Oxford Cambridge and RSA Examinations (OCR)

  • Pearson Education Ltd. (Pearson)

  • WJEC-CBAC Ltd. (WJEC/Eduqas)

Description

The qualifications covered in this release are regulated by Ofqual which publishes conditions that the exam boards it regulates have to meet. These conditions state that “an awarding organisation must have in place clear arrangements for special consideration to be given to learners in relation to qualifications which it makes available”. In this release, special consideration refers to a post-examination adjustment to a student’s mark or grade to account for unforeseen circumstances such as temporary illness, injury, or other forms of indisposition occurring at the time of assessment. The aim of the special consideration process is to mitigate against the impact of unexpected factors that are beyond the student’s control occurring at the time of their assessment which could materially affect a student’s ability to demonstrate their level of attainment or to participate in an assessment.

Post-assessment special consideration differs from pre-assessment access arrangements. Although both mechanisms are designed to support fairness in the assessment of students, they serve different purposes and are implemented at different stages of the assessment process. Access arrangements take the form of adjustments to the way an assessment is taken and are planned in advance of the assessment. Data on pre-exam access arrangements is available in a separate publication by Ofqual (Access Arrangements for GCSE, AS and A level).

Special consideration requests for post-exam adjustments relate to a single request for a candidate taking a specific unit or component. In this release, individual applications refer to an application from one student which can encompass one or more assessment components. Group applications refer to an application which can encompass more than one student if they have been affected by the same circumstance. In this case, a group application can cover all the students and the potentially affected assessments.

Ofqual’s General Conditions of Recognition requires that exam boards publish details on procedures for providing special consideration to candidates taking their qualifications, which must include how a candidate qualifies for special consideration and what special consideration will be given. Ofqual does not prescribe the processes and procedures the exam boards use to make decisions about special consideration applications. This is because the circumstances of each application may be unique, and it is for exam boards to decide if and what special consideration should be given under the circumstances and apply it in a fair and consistent way.

Ofqual’s guide on Regulating GCSEs, AS and A levels highlights the types of post-exam special consideration which include:

  • a small number of extra marks for students whose exam performance is affected by temporary illness, injury, indisposition, or an unforeseen incident

  • awarding the qualification even though the student was absent from an exam or formal assessment (a student must have completed at least one component to be eligible for this type of special consideration).

The Joint Council for Qualifications (JCQ), a membership organisation of 8 providers of qualifications, including the 4 exam boards offering GCSE, AS and A levels in England, publishes guidance and procedures on special consideration. There may be small changes year-on-year to this document that reflect the procedures in place for particular exam series.

Adjustments reported in this release may have been given to students who were present for an assessment but disadvantaged due to temporary injury, illness, or other unforeseen incident occurring immediately before or during the assessment period. JCQ’s procedures allow for only relatively minor adjustments to a student’s mark – up to 5% of the maximum raw mark of a question paper.

JCQ guidelines on special consideration specify various mark adjustment tariffs for different circumstances, as summarised below:

  • 5% – reserved for the most exceptional cases, such as the recent death of a family member or terminal illness

  • 4% – applicable for very serious problems like critical illness or severe injury

  • 3% – granted for instances involving a recent traumatic experience or domestic crisis

  • 2% – encompasses cases such as illness during the assessment or extreme distress (not simply exam-related stress), on the day of the exam

  • 1% – allocated for minor problems, such as noise disturbances during an exam or experiencing hayfever on the day of an exam.

The 0% tariff is used in slightly different ways by each exam board. It may be used when an exam board approves the overall reason for the request, but not all instances the application covers. For example, it may consider that a student who has experienced a recent traumatic event should only receive special consideration for those assessments taken within 3 weeks of the event and not for assessments taken after that time period. It may also be used as a means to capture other types of notification of situations that may have disadvantaged students.

These adjustment tariffs provide a framework for accommodating various challenges that candidates may face during examinations. Each application must be assessed on its merits, and the exam board’s decision should be based on various factors, including the severity of the circumstances, the date of the exam in relation to the circumstances, and the nature of the assessment.

External influences

There are various factors over time which might have influenced the number of special consideration requests made for GCSEs, AS and A level assessments presented in this release:

  1. In the summer of 2023, AS, A level and the majority of GCSE exams and assessments returned to pre-pandemic arrangements. However, some adaptions were maintained to account for potential ongoing disruptions affecting students. JCQ confirmed that some of the eligibility criteria for awarding grades to students unable to take an exam for reasons beyond their control, which were updated in 2022, would now be applied to all future examination series. Additionally, the extended time intervals between exams, first introduced in 2022, were largely preserved. This decreases the likelihood that students will miss all exams in a subject due to illness or another acceptable reason.

  2. Summer 2022 saw the return of examinations and assessments following disruption due to the pandemic in 2020 and 2021. JCQ issued supplementary guidance for students with symptoms of COVID-19. Candidates who were unable to attend examinations due to following UK Health Security Agency guidance were considered to be absent for acceptable reasons. In 2023, JCQ’s eligibility criteria for students who missed an exam removed specific requirements relating to COVID-19 symptoms, in line with updated advice from the UK Health Security Agency and the lifting of school-related COVID-19 rules.

  3. In 2020 and 2021, arrangements for awarding were different due to the impacts of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. Grades for GCSE, AS and A level were based primarily on Centre Assessment Grades (CAGs) in 2020 and Teacher Assessed Grades (TAGs) in 2021. For more information on how grades were awarded in these years, see Ofqual’s 2021 student guide to awarding and Ofqual’s guidance on awarding for GCSE, AS and A level in 2020. Because assessments did not take place in 2020 and 2021, there are no special consideration numbers to report for those years in this publication.

  4. The number of requests in each subject will be influenced by the number of components available in respect of which requests could be made. Specifications with a greater number of components are likely to receive higher volumes of special consideration requests. For example, some legacy A levels had more components than reformed A levels. Also, the balance of non-examined assessment and exams has changed in certain subjects over time. Due to these variations, caution is advised when making year-to-year comparisons.

Data source

The exam boards send Ofqual data on the number of requests for special consideration and their approvals. Ofqual collected data at candidate level and by subject for special consideration requests for the first time in 2017. Data tables in this release include data from 2018 only.

From 2016 onwards, the number of non-timetabled assessments (for example internal assessment and coursework) has also been reported, along with the number of scripts marked.

Data for AS and A level have been combined in this release, unless otherwise specified.

To aid comparison with previous years, we have presented the number of withdrawn requests in the total number of requests. Withdrawn requests refer to instances where exam boards withdraw the original application and ask the centre to reapply, at which point it is treated as a new application.

Limitations

There is potential for error in the information provided by exam boards, therefore Ofqual cannot guarantee that the information received is correct. However, Ofqual conducts various quality assurance checks which are outlined in the ‘quality assurance’ section below.

AQA imposes a cut-off date of 31 July for receipt of special consideration requests. Any requests received following this date are processed manually and are not currently included in the numbers published in this report because only the overall total (without any breakdown or further details) has been provided at present. As an example, AQA received 118 requests after 31 July in 2018 that are not currently included in the data tables and analysis used in this report.

In addition, prior to 2019, WJEC did not report requests received on or after results day but has done so since 2019. The number of special consideration requests received and approved by WJEC prior to 2019 may therefore be higher than reported.

Data returned by other exam boards include all requests made up to the data submission deadline.

Quality assurance

Quality assurance procedures are carried out as explained in the Quality Assurance Framework for Statistical Publications published by Ofqual to ensure the accuracy of the data and to challenge or question it, where necessary. Publication may be deferred if the statistics are not considered fit for purpose.

Revisions

Once published, data on special considerations are not usually subject to revision, although subsequent releases may be revised to insert late data or to correct an error.

Confidentiality and rounding

To ensure confidentiality of the accompanying data, all figures for the number of special consideration requests are rounded to the nearest 5. Figures below 5 (1 to 4) appear as ‘fewer than 5’ and ‘0’ refers to cases where there are zero values relating to the number of requests, approvals and individual or group applications.

Percentages have been rounded to whole numbers in the report and to one decimal place in the accompanying data tables. As a result of rounded figures, the percentages (calculated on actual figures) shown in any tables may not add up to 100.

Status

These statistics are classified as official statistics.

Our statistical practice is regulated by the Office for Statistics Regulation (OSR). OSR sets the standards of trustworthiness, quality and value in the Code of Practice for Statistics that all producers of official statistics should adhere to.

You are welcome to contact us directly at data.analytics@ofqual.gov.uk with any comments about how we meet these standards. Alternatively, you can contact OSR by emailing regulation@statistics.gov.uk or via the OSR website.

A number of other statistical releases and publications relate to this one:

For any related publications for qualifications offered in Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland please contact the respective regulators - Qualifications Wales, CCEA and the Scottish Qualifications Authority (SQA).

Feedback

We welcome your feedback on our publications. Should you have any comments on this statistical release and how to improve it to meet your needs please contact us at data.analytics@ofqual.gov.uk.

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