On Friday 20 March, schools across the country closed their doors as the coronavirus pandemic continued, not knowing when they would reopen again (given the exception of the children of key workers). With that came the cancellation of all exams - including GCSEs, AS and A Levels.
This left many students, and their parents, completely in the dark when it came to college and university places.
Now the Office of Qualifications and Examinations Regulation (Ofqual), the government exams regulator, has given details on how these exams will be awarded.
Schools and colleges are being asked to provide centre assessment grades for their students, , with the exam boards then providing external checking.
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It has been requested that the grades be fair, objective and carefully considered judgements of the grades that schools and colleges believe their students would have been most likely to achieve if they had sat their exams.
The grade should take into account the full range of available evidence from classwork, homework, non-exam assessments, previous examination results, participation in performances for subjects like PE, drama and music, and students overall performance over the course of study
Exam boards will be contacting schools, colleges and other exam centres after Easter asking them to submit a centre assessment grade for each of their students by a deadline that will be no earlier than 29 May 2020.
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Teachers will also be asked to provide a rank order of their students within each centre assessment grade, ranging from least secure/lowest performing to most secure/highest performing. This will be used to help standardise the grades across the country.
Sally Collier, Chief Regulator for Ofqual, said: "School or college based assessment already has an important role in many GCSEs, AS and A levels and in extraordinary circumstances such as these, schools and colleges are best placed to judge the likely performance of their students at the end of the course.
"We have worked closely with the teaching profession to ensure that what we are asking is both appropriate and manageable, so that everyone can have confidence in the approach. I would like to take this opportunity to thank teachers and school leaders for making this process work for students during these very challenging times.
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"We have published a message to students to reassure them that we, and exam boards, will do everything we can to make sure that, as far as possible, grades are fair and that they are not disadvantaged in their progress to sixth form, college, university, apprenticeships, training or work because of these unprecedented conditions."
Featured Image Credit: PA