Draft guidance for heads of centre, heads of department and teachers

As part of a consultation on our rules for awarding GCSEs, AS and A levels in 2021, we published (on Thursday, 25 February) draft guidance for heads of centre, heads of department and teachers on how to generate the evidence that will be used to determine their students’ grades this summer.

The grades submitted to exam boards must reflect a fair, reasonable and carefully considered judgement of the student’s performance across a range of evidence, on the curriculum content that they have been taught. Heads of centre should emphasise the need for judgements to be objective and fair. To promote this, exam boards will set out detailed quality assurance requirements.

We’d like views on this draft guidance from heads of centre, heads of department and teachers. You have until 23:45 on 11 March to respond to the consultation.

This is part of a technical consultation and necessary for us to set the rules so exams boards deliver and award qualifications in accordance with the latest policy decisions.

We are also seeking views on the proposed rules, and the proposed ‘information for centres about making objective judgements’. We are not seeking views on the underlying policy decisions, which we announced following our joint consultation with the Department for Education and explained in our analysis and decisions documents.