Last week, qualifications and exam regulator Ofqual released their corporate plan outlining planned changes to exams in England. The proposed reforms follow well-publicised problems regarding marking, consistency, exam providers and alleged grade inflation in recent years.
The Government’s ‘The Importance of Teaching’ White Paper gave the independent regulator the task of making sure that exam standards in this country match the highest standards overseas and Ofqual’s Corporate Plan identifies the need to restore public confidence in the exam system.
To achieve this Ofqual plans to conduct a series of reviews into:
- the comparative demand and outcomes of key GCSEs and A level specifications;
- examination marking;
- the approach to appeals; and
- the way in which results are graded.
- They also plan to make recommendations on comparability across subjects and awarding organisations, as well as improving the regulation and monitoring of qualifications that compete with GCSEs and A levels.
The Corporate Plan outlines specific changes to be introduced for each type of exam.
For GCSEs:
- • From 2012, examinations will take place at the end of the course, rather than at the end of each module;
- • GCSEs in English literature, geography, history and religious studies will include marks for the accurate use of spelling, punctuation and grammar from September 2012;
- • Specifications in geography, history and English literature and assessment in mathematics will be changed to ensure the courses cover a broad enough curriculum;
- • An evaluation will be conducted as to how to guarantee good literacy or numeracy skills for those gaining grade C in GCSE English, GCSE English language and GCSE mathematics;
- • The usefulness of controlled assessment will be reviewed;
- • The grading structure will be reviewed to decide whether it should continue to stretch from A* to G;
- • Brand guidelines will be developed with the aim of reducing the number and range of GCSE subjects and courses; and
- • GCSE’s will be benchmarked against similar qualifications in other countries.
For A levels, Ofqual plans to:
- • consider the range of qualifications, in particular in mathematics;
- • consult on changes to the structure and assessment of A levels; and
- • implement new ways of involving higher education in determining A level content.
- • And following the Wolf Review, Ofqual plans to address Vocational qualifications by:
- • reviewing the Functional Skills qualifications;
- • reviewing the operation and usefulness of the Qualifications and Credit Framework (QCF); and
- • reviewing and comparing standards in relevant areas of vocational qualifications, in particular those included in performance tables.
In addition, the watchdog will review Sats tests in English and Maths for 11-year-olds to make them comparable with exams sat by pupils in other countries.
Ofqual also hopes to reduce the temptation to ‘teach to the test’ which it states “can lead to good results at the cost of true understanding”, by addressing the predictability of examinations, the supply of information to schools, colleges and teachers on the style and nature of particular examinations and limiting the types of seminars that exam boards can run. The regulator will also review the cost of all qualifications after schools spent £330m on exams last year, more than doubling the cost in just eight years,
The plans have been met with mixed reactions from education commentators. However in an article in The Journal, Dr Bernard Trafford, Headmaster at the Royal Grammar School in Newcastle, Beccy Earnshaw, Director of SCHOOLS NorthEast and spokespeople from the NUT and ASCL all agreed on the importance of school leaders and teachers being involved in all stages of the design and implementation of any changes. Mr Trafford said “I’m not against the idea of an overhaul, but I do pray that schools and teachers are consulted”.
Ofqual’s report comes as four examiners have had their contracts terminated and 78 others have been ordered to improve their performance after mistakes were made in calculating pupils' scores in GCSE and A-level papers from last summer.
The exam board OCR has apologised for marking errors that affected GCSE and A-level grades but exams regulator Ofqual said it could not be certain that all candidates had the grades they deserved.