The government has finally confirmed its plan for GCSE and A-level grading next summer.
Grades awarded in 2022 will use boundaries set at a “mid-point” between the distributions seen in 2021 and 2019, the last year when public exams were sat the BBC reports.
With adjusted grade boundaries, the proportion of pupils getting top A-level grades could drop by as much as 10 percentage points on last summer’s results, when almost 45 per cent of all entries were awarded A or A*.
Ministers are insisting that the 2022 exams will go ahead although teacher assessed grades will be kept as a back-up option.
In terms of the exams themselves, candidates taking the exams next summer will get notice of exam topics in some subjects and they will be allowed to take additional materials into exams, such as formulae crib sheets.
These mitigations are designed to make up for pupils’ lost learning last year and potentially this year because of Covid.
Ofqual’s chief regulator Dr Jo Saxton said: “As we return to summer exams, in 2022 exam boards will set the grade boundaries based on a profile that reflects a mid-point between 2021 and pre-pandemic grading.
“This will provide a safety net for students, to reflect the disruption this cohort have experienced already in their course and recognising the fact that, because of the pandemic, most A-level students won’t have taken public exams before.
“Our aim is to return to a pre-pandemic grade profile.
“But we don’t think it would be fair on 2022’s students to do it all in one go, given the disruption they have experienced. We will aim, therefore, to return in broadly two steps.”
Dr Mary Bousted, joint general secretary of the NEU teaching union, said: “The government and Ofqual are picking an arbitrary number out of the air in order to determine how many of each grade will be issued next summer.
“Such a random act undermines their argument that exams are the fairest way to assess students.”