The Department for Education has requested that the UK’s exams regulator Ofqual provides GCSE students in England with formulae and equations to limit the effects of Covid on their results. The additional support was designed to last until the next year and is being consulted on. During the pandemic, most students who will sit exams next year were in Year 7 when the national lockdown was introduced, making these measures necessary.
Education Secretary Gillian Keegan said that this additional support would be given to maths, physics, and combined science GCSE students in the form of enhanced formulae and equation sheets. The National Association of Head Teachers has stated that such a decision should have been made earlier for many students to have benefited better from mock exams, which are due next month.
While the Association of School and College Leaders welcomed the move, they suggested that the provision must be permanent to ensure that students could concentrate on core knowledge and skills. Exams in England were due to return to 2019 arrangements this year until the announcement of the support package. The exams were cancelled across the UK in 2020 and 2021, and since then, teachers’ assessments have determined the grades, leading to a spike in top results.
Students returning to exam halls in 2022 were given additional support to reflect the disruption caused by the pandemic. GCSE papers were spaced apart more than they had been before in the same subject, allowing for rest and revision. Despite those measures remaining for exams in England in 2023, students were not given advance information regarding the topics on which they would be tested, unlike in the rest of the UK
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