What you need to know about GCSE and A-level changes as pupils given details about exam content
ITV News Correspondent John Ray explains how exams are changing for Summer 2022
Additional information for students preparing for major summer exams while dealing with disruption from Covid-19 has been made available.
The Department for Education (DfE) has said exams will go ahead as planned in the summer, with assessment boards publishing details to focus teaching and revision over the coming months.
Here's what you need to know.
What are these changes?
The main change is that exam boards for many GCSE and A-level subjects are publishing additional information on the topics that will be covered in the summer exams.
Some of these subjects will be broken down into a list of topics that will form the main focus of exams, but not the entire paper – meaning students are still advised to revise the subject as a whole.
Why is this happening?
This is an attempt to maximise the fairness of assessments after the disruption caused by Covid-19 over the past two years.
The idea is that the extra information will help students to focus their revision more carefully.
The advance information is not intended to reduce the amount of content pupils need to be taught or tested on.
There have been concerns the lack of advance information for “lower-tariff” questions carrying fewer marks would advantage more able pupils.
Last month, Ofqual’s chief regulator Jo Saxton said this would not be the case.
"Of course, much of the advance information gives a steer on how to revise for higher tariff questions, although not all of it,” Ms Saxton said.
“Bluntly, to focus advance information on low tariff questions would be nonsensical,” she added.
“It would be silly to publish a document that says something like; you will be asked to identify the year in which the Versailles Treaty was signed, or the year in which Magna Carta was signed. Clearly, at that point, the exam would stop being an exam.”
Do the same changes apply to all subjects?
No, subjects will be adapted in different ways, with some seeing no changes at all.
In GCSE maths, combined science and physics, for example, pupils will be given formulae sheets to reduce the number of equations they need to memorise.
There are also changes to requirements for practical assessments in sciences and art and design, recognising how the pandemic will have affected students’ opportunities in these subjects, the DfE said.
But there will be no changes for subjects based purely on coursework, like art and design, and there will be less advance information for text-based subjects like history and English literature.
So what about the subjects that aren’t included?
In subjects where advance information will not be released, pupils will have more choice about topics in the exam, or at GCSE level they will study and be examined on fewer topics.
For some of these text-based subjects, such as English language, the advance information may include the genre or period that unseen texts used during exams will be drawn from.
Where can I find out about my subjects?
The materials will only be available on the exam board websites, with students warned not to look elsewhere in case they find inaccurate or misleading information.
Information from the main exam boards can be found on their respective websites:
What about grade boundaries?
GCSE and A-level examiners in 2022 will be asked to be more generous than in previous years to account for the disruptions to education caused by the pandemic.
Grade boundaries could be more generous in some cases, with a lower score across papers needed to secure a particular grade, but examiners’ generosity could be more wide-ranging, exam boards have said.
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Exams regulator Ofqual has previously announced that grade boundaries will be set roughly between 2019 pre-pandemic levels and boundaries in 2021, when teacher assessment was used to set grades.
The DfE said: “This summer will be a transition year and exam boards will set grade boundaries to reflect a midway point between 2021 and pre-pandemic grading, in a way that is as fair as possible for all students, across all subjects and exam boards.
“This will mean that more students get higher grades in 2022 than before the pandemic and will provide a safety net for those students who might otherwise just might miss out on a higher grade.”