Q and A: What next for GCSE marks?

The qualification regulator Ofqual pledged on Saturday to look again at GCSE gradings amid claims that thousands of pupils were unfairly given a D grade in English instead of a C.

Ofqual’s initial report is scheduled to come out later today. Channel 4 News viewers and followers on Twitter and Facebook sent in the questions that they want answered – we put them to Ofqual ahead of the report’s arrival.

How quickly will Ofqual review grades bearing in mind term starts next week?

On Saturday 25 August, Chief Regulator Glenys Stacey announced that Ofqual will look closely at the detail of grade C boundary setting for some of the English units.

We want to:
– Confirm and explain what has happened to GCSE English results this summer
– Take swift action if problems are found
– Maintain confidence in the exam system
– Identify broader questions for further work by Ofqual and others.

We are aiming for an initial report on Friday.

We are now looking closely at the concerns that have been raised with us and how the results were arrived at. Ofqual

Why were controlled assessments done earlier also seemingly downgraded if the final paper was taken in June, but not in January?

We are now looking closely at the concerns that have been raised with us and how the results were arrived at.

Controlled assessment opportunities vary according to the exam board – in the case of AQA CA for English Language, for example, there were four opportunities to submit work for this in the 2011/12 year. This is a feature of unitised qualifications.

Schools are compared on the basis of GCSE results but there has been no distinction made between January entries and June entries. Is Ofqual aware of this?

School performance tables are not matters for Ofqual. Only units are completed in January, not the full qualification. At this stage the exam boards were only looking at a small cohort who claimed results on their controlled assessment units only and not for the full qualification.

Why was the C/D borderline shifted so dramatically for pupils in June?
The new GCSE English is a modular qualification where students take exams in different units spread across a couple of years. In these circumstances the exam boards have to consider all the evidence available for each exam series and make decisions to make sure that the right qualification standards are achieved.

Grade boundaries can change from exam series to exam series. Decisions on grade boundaries are made after assessments have been taken – based upon all of the available evidence. Exam boards consider this, and make decisions accordingly, to make sure that the final qualification grades are comparable to last year.

We are now looking at how the final qualification grades were arrived at. We’re analysing a range of evidence. For example:
– Reports from meetings
– Examiners’ reports
-Grade boundary data

We will be using them to see if the exam boards’ processes were in line with what we had agreed they should be.

Is the problem the same with all exam boards, or have some changed their mark schemes more than others?

We are discussing the concerns being raised with exam boards and will release our initial report on Friday. Each exam board sets grade boundaries appropriately to ensure the right standards are set, considering the available evidence about their exam or assessment and the group of students who sat it.

Have the exams been made harder or is it just the marking that has changed?

Exams have not been made harder and there have been no changes to marking. Ofqual’s job is to make sure that grades are right. For the past couple of years, Ofqual and the exam boards have used an approach called “comparable outcomes” for the awarding of GCSEs and A levels. This is based on the principles that if the group of students entering exams is similar one year to the next, the profile of their results will be similar. Where an exam board’s outcomes look like they will be different to the expectations, in either direction, we ask them for an explanation, to make sure the difference can be explained and justified.

Exam boards have said they are working to tackle grade inflation over a period of years, so why has this year been so problematic?

We remain confident that overall this year’s GCSE results – across all subjects – are comparable with last year’s and reflect the right standards. The overall pass rate at grades A* – C fell 0.4 per cent, which reflects differences in the group of students and the qualifications. But there are clearly concerns about the grade boundaries within the units of some English GCSEs. We want to understand what these concerns are and we will look immediately, thoroughly, and quickly into these issues.