News story: Further decisions on reviews of marking, reviews of moderation, and appeals

Ofqual has today (16 February) announced a number of decisions about the future arrangements for reviews of marking, reviews of moderation, and appeals services.

The exams regulator for England announced in July 2016 a number of decisions related to how it intended to make the systems schools and colleges use to challenge GCSE, AS and A level results in England clearer, more consistent, and fairer for all students. Today’s decisions were deferred at that time so that more evidence could be gathered about their potential impact. In light of feedback from a range of stakeholders, Ofqual has decided:

• to introduce the requirement for exam boards to make marked GCSE scripts available to centres, before their deadline for requesting a review of marking, for the summer 2020 exam series onwards

• to introduce the requirement for exam boards to provide the reasons for review of marking decisions automatically for the summer 2020 exam series onwards

• to introduce the requirement for exam boards to grant learners the ability to request results of centre-marked assessments for the summer 2018 exam series onwards

• to defer implementation of the removal of automatic grade protection that currently applies, following a review of moderation for at least two years. During this time, we will review the approaches exam boards take to moderation before deciding whether to remove this protection

Ofqual has announced requirements for key dates for the completion of reviews and appeals. These will ensure common, minimum timelines for centres and students.

A final decision regarding extending the grounds for appeal will be taken later this Spring once analysis of a pilot study has been completed. Official statistics on GCSE, AS and A level result appeals will be published on 21 March 2016.

Ofqual has also launched a survey for teachers about their experience of the review of marking and moderation services (formerly known as EARs).