Ofqual has today (28 June 2017) announced that schools and
colleges in England will in future have a second opportunity to
challenge GCSE, AS level, A level and project results if they
continue to have concerns about marking or moderation errors.
This adds to their existing right to appeal results on the
grounds that an exam board hasn’t followed its own procedures.
Starting this summer, those who continue to have concerns about
marking or moderation errors in AS and A levels or project
qualifications after the exam board has conducted its first
review will be able to ask exam boards to look again. This
follows the evaluation of a pilot exercise in summer 2016
involving 3 A level subjects (geography, religious studies, and
physics), the results of which are
published today. It found that this additional grounds of
appeal provided a better opportunity for errors in marking to be
identified and corrected.
The opportunity to appeal on the grounds of a marking or
moderation error will be extended to GCSEs in English language,
English literature and maths in 2018, and to all remaining GCSE
subjects in 2019.
The period over which the new grounds will be phased in will give
exam boards the time needed to appropriately build their capacity
to manage the likely increase in appeal requests.
We have updated our guide for schools and
colleges to reflect the change.
Commenting on today’s announcement, Sally Collier, Chief
Regulator said:
We require exam boards to have procedures in place to make sure
exam papers are marked accurately in the first place. However,
it’s important that schools, students and teachers can
challenge results if they have concerns. We’ve taken steps over
the past couple of years to make the systems they use to do
this clearer, more consistent, and fairer for all students.
Today’s announcement means that everybody can have even more
confidence that if a marking or moderation error has been made,
it will be corrected.
We have updated our rules for project
qualifications to include the new grounds. We have taken
the opportunity to withdraw our rules for principal learning and
diploma qualifications, as no awarding organisations plan to
offer these qualifications in future, and we have also withdrawn
the ‘GCSE, GCE, Principal Learning and Project Code of Practice’.
