exams | Schools Week

Simon Lebus resigns as Cambridge Assessment chief executive

Simon Lebus, group chief executive of Cambridge Assessment, will stand down from the role after 15 years at the helm. Lebus will leave the organisation, which runs exam boards OCR, Cambridge International Examinations, and Cambridge Language Assessment, in March next year. It follows a 15-year stint in the role during which the not-for-profit department of […]

Schools spend thousands of pounds on ‘question banks’ to improve GCSEs and SATs scores

Schools are spending thousands of pounds on “question banks” to prepare pupils for exams and to improve assessment outcomes. The banks, which allow teachers to access different types of questions on a single topic, have grown at a “crazy” rate, say exam boards. AQA offers a question bank for primary schools called Testbase, which costs […]

Ofqual ditches plans to regulate ‘easy’ and ‘hard’ subjects

Exams regulator Ofqual is no longer seeking to harmonise the number of pupils achieving top grades across different subjects – admitting it is too difficult to do. The regulator launched a consultation into the difficulty of GCSE and A-level subjects in December 2015 to address the issue of comparability across examined subjects. One of the […]

Confidence is at an all-time low in the exam marking system

Exams manager Paula Wood says confidence is at an all-time low in the exam marking system, but will Ofqual’s recent moderation announcements change that? Some 67,900 exam grades were changed after they were challenged in summer 2016 – that is 18% of challenged grades, not dissimilar to 19% the previous year – despite changes to […]

Pupils able to request coursework results from 2018

Pupils will be able to request the results of their GCSE and A-level coursework from next year, Ofqual has announced today. The qualifications watchdog had delayed various decisions to the appeal process, due to be introduced last year, so it could consult further on the changes. But the watchdog has announced today pupils will be […]

We need an education system that works for the whole of society

Attainment is important for young people, but exams have to be seen in a wider context as part of an education that allows young people to flourish, says John Sentamu. Up and down the country, there are great examples of schools achieving fantastic results for some of the most disadvantaged pupils – results that give […]

Errors in exam papers tripled this year, Ofqual report reveals

The number of ‘material errors’ in the design of A level and GCSE exam papers has more than tripled in a year, affecting 323,000 pupils this summer. Ofqual’s report on the 2016 summer exams shows the number of reported assessment material errors rose from 11 in 2015 to 37 this year. The biggest rise was […]

Fewer schools punished for exam malpractice, but penalties for staff soar

The number of school staff penalised for helping students cheat in exams has risen by nearly 50 per cent, as the number of penalties issued to schools and colleges falls. Ofqual figures published today show that 388 individual teachers or invigilators were issued penalties for malpractice during GCSEs and A-levels this year, up 48 per […]

We’re launching a consultation on assessment in schools

Testing and assessment worry parents and teachers, although both are integral and critical to good teaching, says Rod Bristow. He explains why his company now plans to talk to “all stakeholders” to bring about positive change. Teachers understand better than anyone that good assessment is part and parcel of good teaching. But 2017 will be […]