Students will be able to appeal if they believe an error has been made, or they do not believe their grade is a fair reflection of their work. Appeals will be submitted to the exam boards by schools and colleges on behalf of students. The deadline is September 17, or August 23 for students who want their appeal to be considered as a priority because they’ve not had their first choice of university place confirmed.
How likely is it that an appeal will be successful?
Grades will only be changed if there was an error when determining or submitting it, or if the grade given could not have reasonably been reached based on the evidence.
When the appeal is submitted, students will need to explain why they think their result was incorrect. Grades can go up, down or stay the same.
Will the grades take into account children having spent differing amounts of time out of school over the last year?
There are no requirements about the minimum amount having been taught or assessed for teacher-assessed grades, but students will need to have covered enough for the grade to be meaningful.
Cath Jadhav, director of standards and comparability at exams regulator Ofqual, said: “Where a school or college believes that a student has suffered misfortune that might have affected their performance in an assessment, they have discretion to take account of that in coming to their judgement.”
Will students be able to take resits?
Exam boards will be offering exams in October for AS and A levels, and in November and December for GCSEs. Exams will be available for all subjects, and for AS in biology, chemistry, physics, maths and further maths.
The exams will be in a standard format and no adaptations will be made other than
reasonable adjustments for eligible students.
What about vocational qualifications?
Teachers’ grades will be used to replace written vocational exams, in the same way as GCSEs and A-levels. But where there are practical, hands-on skills to be tested, such as for a professional qualification, some of these exams will continue in a Covid-safe way.
The results for some vocational qualifications will be released in the week of August 9. These qualifications include many Btecs and Cambridge Nationals
