Students in Scotland sit different exams. Official results were released on 10 August , confirming provisional grades awarded in June. When Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced in January that exams would be cancelled again this year, there was a mixed reaction.
The National Association of Head Teachers said the plans would avoid "the awful chaos of last year". The Sutton Trust - an education charity - has expressed concern that teacher-assessed grades could lead to students from wealthier backgrounds getting higher marks than they would usually.
Its research - focusing on A-Level students - found that parents at less deprived schools were more likely to approach or pressure teachers about their children's grades. The grading system in England was changed from letters to numbers in The updated grades were part of a new curriculum introduced in England's schools in by the then education secretary, Michael Gove, putting far more emphasis on exams rather than coursework.
Wales kept its letter-based grading structure, while Northern Ireland opted for a mixture of letters and numbers for its grades. GCSEs were due to be decided by a mathematical model, known as an algorithm, but this plan was abandoned. After a last-minute change by the government, pupils' GCSE grades were based on teachers' assessments. Ofqual chair Roger Taylor told the BBC the regulator decided to "change course" after seeing the "anxiety" it had caused to young people.
Exam boards have a modified role this year. Instead of marking exams, they will monitor the process to avert any abuse and judge if the evidence teachers use to grade pupils is fair. Adjustments lined up for next year include slimming down some of the subject areas to be tested and pushing back the dates of exams to increase lesson time.
One innovation that looks unlikely to get off the ground is leaving certificates. If students don't get the grades they had hoped for or have failed to meet their conditional offers, they can apply for places through the clearing process instead.
The UCAS clearing system allows students who have missed their grades to find places on university courses which still have vacancies available. What time are GCSE results out? This is a smaller rise than last year, the first time exams were cancelled and teacher assessed grades were used.
Exams regulators have insisted the process has been fair and thorough. Teachers submitted grades for the more than half a million pupils on GCSE courses this year, using evidence such as mock exams, course work and tests.
There are different devolved systems for GCSEs:. The two years of replacement grades, after exams were cancelled in the pandemic, have had significantly higher results, for GCSEs and A-levels. Exam officials say it reflects that no one has had a bad day in an exam and that pupils had multiple chances to show their best potential.
England's exam watchdog Ofqual said the system was fair, each centre had its assessment policy reviewed and samples of work were checked during a "quality assurance" process. As well as getting GCSEs, more than half a million vocational qualifications were also issued, including for , BTec students. Schools Minister Nick Gibb defended the way GCSE results had been awarded, saying this had been a "very different year" and it was right that exams were cancelled.
Mr Gibb said longer term, he wanted to get back to a pre-pandemic system where there are no "significant changes" year-on-year in the grades awarded to students. This is a week or two earlier than usual, in order to give A-level pupils more time to appeal their results ahead of university admissions.
Pupils will be able to pick up their results in person from their school again this year, after the tradition was scrapped last year due to the pandemic. It should be no harder or easier to achieve a particular grade than it is in a normal year when examinations take place.
Teachers will base their assessments on a range of evidence, including coursework and mock exams.
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