Ofqual today (5 July) held an event setting out expectations for the 2018 awarding process of GCSEs, AS and A levels.
This year sees the first award of 20 new GCSEs, 20 new, decoupled AS levels and 12 new, decoupled A levels, following the first reformed qualifications awarded last year. It is the final time results will be issued for some legacy qualifications. We discussed entry patterns and how standards will be set and maintained in the new qualifications.
Students sat the exams over six weeks in May and June, and results will be issued on 16 August (AS and A levels) and 23 August (GCSEs).
We also published reports on AS and A level decoupling and Reviews of marking for the November 2017 GCSE resits.
We shared some of the evidence we gathered to help us judge if there is a compelling case to make an adjustment to grade standards in 6 A level subjects on the basis of inter-subject comparability. We also discussed our ongoing programme of work on quality of marking, focusing in particular on why some responses to exam questions are especially difficult to mark and recent work we have undertaken on reviews of marking.