Assessment
How GCSEs, AS and A levels will be assessed in 2022.
We confirmed the arrangements for exams and non-exam assessment for students taking qualifications in summer 2022 in November 2021.
Students entering GCSEs, AS or A levels in 2022 will take exams in the summer and complete any non-exam assessments throughout the year.
There is a package of support in place for all students taking GCSE, AS and A level qualifications this summer. These are unprecedented exam arrangements to respond to the impact of the pandemic.
You can find information on the specific changes made for each subject.
In GCSE mathematics, students will be given a formula sheet in the exams showing the formulae they might need to use so students don’t have to memorise as much as usual.
In GCSE physics and combined science, students will be given a sheet in the exams showing the equations they might need to use, again, so they don’t have to memorise as much as usual.
These formulae and equation sheets are available on the exam boards’ public websites. Schools and colleges should make sure that students are familiar with these before they take their exams. Clean copies of the formulae sheet and equation sheet will be provided in the exams – students will not be able to take any highlighted or annotated versions into the exam room.
Non-exam assessment
We have allowed for a range of adjustments to the non-exam assessment arrangements to accommodate public health restrictions in GCSE dance, design and technology, drama (and theatre), film studies, food preparation and nutrition, media studies, music, music technology, and physical education (PE).
Practical work
Centres have been able to deliver practical work in GCSE biology, chemistry, physics, combined science, geology, and astronomy, AS level biology, chemistry, physics, and geology, and AS and A level environmental science by demonstration. We encouraged centres to continue to make available hands-on practical activities for their students wherever possible. The exams in these subjects, however, will remain unchanged.
CPAC
For A levels in biology, chemistry, physics and geology, centres have been allowed to assess the Common Practical Assessment Criteria (CPAC) across the minimum number of practical activities required to enable students to demonstrate their competence.
Exam boards can carry out remote monitoring of centres’ application of the CPAC.
Fieldwork
Students are not required to undertake fieldwork on a mandated number of occasions or days outside of school or college premises in GCSE, AS and A level geography and geology, and AS and A level environmental science. However, fieldwork is an important feature of these qualifications, and we encouraged centres to engage fieldwork activities wherever possible. Students undertaking GCSE and AS qualifications in geography will not have to answer exam questions on their own fieldwork experiences.
Students taking GCSE, AS and A level art and design will be assessed on their portfolio only.
Exam boards will not have to include vocabulary that is not on the vocabulary lists for assessments in GCSE modern foreign languages.
Teachers are not required to submit an audio-visual recording of a sample of students undertaking their spoken language assessments in GCSE English language.
More information on the changes to coursework and non-exam assessment can be found in our Decisions on arrangements for non-exam assessment and fieldwork requirements for students entering qualifications in 2022.
This year, there will be less content or fewer topics for students to learn in GCSE English literature, history, ancient history, and geography. More information on these changes can be found on the relevant exam board’s website. There is no advance information for these GCSE subjects.
Exam boards have published advance information about the exams to help students to focus their revision. There is advance information for all AS and A levels subjects, and all GCSE subjects except English literature, history, geography, and ancient history where there is optional content instead, and art and design where there is no assessment by examination.
We set the principles that underpin advance information and worked with the boards to apply them to each specification. These principles balance fairness, flexibility and certainty, with the need to ensure that the qualifications remain valid, so that students can be confident in the grades they achieve. It is not possible, for example, to know what questions will be asked in exams from reading the advance information.
Advance information is designed to help students to focus their revision- it is not intended to reduce the content taught.
There are differences in advance information between subjects and, in some cases, between different exam boards’ specifications in the same subject. This reflects differences that exist between over 300 GCSE, AS and A level qualifications.
In pre-pandemic years, one of our aims in grading was to make sure it was no easier to get a particular grade in a subject with one exam board than another, and we used statistics, alongside examiner judgement, to do that. We’ll do the same in 2022, to make sure that inevitable differences (due to different specification structures) in advance information don’t make it easier, or harder, for students to get a particular grade in different specifications or subjects than with others.
As we return to summer exams, in 2022 exam boards will set grade boundaries that are more generous than pre-pandemic.
This will provide a safety net for students, to reflect the disruption this cohort have experienced already in their course of study and recognising the fact that, because of the pandemic, most A level students won’t have taken public exams before.
As in any other year, exam boards will use data as a starting point, to align their standards in a subject. That will be based on a national average of 2019 and 2021 results for each subject. The grade boundaries for each specification will then be set by the senior examiners, after they have reviewed the work produced by students, and guided by the data.
As in any year when students take exams, there is no pre-determined ‘quota’ of grades.
Exam boards must make sure schools and colleges have the information they need to hand out the right papers on the right day and under the right conditions, and that schools and colleges take particular care to store any exam materials securely to protect the confidentiality of the exams.
We require exam boards to have written and enforceable agreements with schools and colleges that deliver any part of their qualifications, including administering exams and other assessments. The agreements must cover a number of provisions, including that the school or college:
- assists the exam board when it undertakes monitoring
- has a workforce that can deliver the qualification as the exam board requires
- operates a complaints procedure for students
JCQ has produced instructions for schools and colleges for conducting examinations. It covers a range of requirements the exam boards place on schools and colleges, including:
- how exam papers must be stored
- checks which must be performed when the papers are delivered
- who should be present to supervise opening of papers
- starting times for exams
- supervision of candidates who take exams earlier or later than timetabled
- using calculators
- using other resources, such as dictionaries
- conditions, equipment, and seating arrangements in the exam room
- invigilation arrangements
- what must be done at the start of the examination, including identifying candidates
- starting the exam
- how to supervise during the exam
- what to do when a candidate is late
- completing an attendance register
- what do to in the event of emergencies
- ending the exam and packing away
- sending the scripts back to the exam board
Exams officers and invigilators play an essential role in the smooth running of the exam system. Schools and colleges should ensure that contingency arrangements are in place should exam officers, or invigilators, be unable to attend on the day on an exam.
The Exams Office, in partnership with the National Association of Examinations Officers, have produced the Invigilator Recruitment and Vacancy map to support schools and colleges in recruiting invigilators.
Errors in exam papers are rare, but they can, and may occasionally happen. Schools and colleges should encourage their students to let them know immediately if they believe there may have been an error in their paper. If a school or college believes there is an error in an exam paper, including in any modified papers, it should contact the relevant exam board immediately. Exam boards will determine whether an error has been made and, if it has, the potential impact of the error on students.
They consider, for example, whether the error will have stopped students being able to answer the question or complete the task, or whether students’ performance in other questions might have been affected by the error. They then decide the fairest way to proceed. This might include analysing how students answered the question or awarding all students full marks for the question.
We take question paper errors seriously. We consider whether an exam board’s planned action is appropriate and fair, and we may require it to take particular steps to address the impact of the error on students. We also consider whether to take any regulatory action when exam boards make mistakes.
If skills and knowledge cannot be assessed through exams, exam boards test them through non-exam assessments.
Where a GCSE, AS or A level includes non-exam assessment, such as a dance or music performance, teachers should support their students, wherever possible, to complete that assessment in line with arrangements announced by Ofqual for 2022 and the timescales set by exam boards. The non-exam assessment will be marked and moderated as usual and combined with students’ exam marks to generate their grades.
For art and design qualifications, for which there are no exams, students should complete their non-exam assessments in line with the 2022 requirements as published.
Exam boards provide their own instructions on how the non-exam assessments must be undertaken. JCQ has also published detailed guidance about how the exam boards operate their non-exam assessments in GCSEs, AS and A levels, and what is expected of schools and colleges.
Exam boards check whether their rules are properly followed. They have different ways of doing so, including through general centre-inspection visits, subject-targeted visits, and statistical monitoring (which enables them to identify marks for non-exam assessments that appear out of line with students’ performance in their exams for that subject).