Today’s announcement that exam grades will be set mid-way between the 2019 exams and the 2021 teacher assessed grades is a positive one. It gives certainty to pupils taking exams this year, as they have suffered significantly from the ongoing disruption to education caused by Covid-19. It means that the percentage of passes and higher grades will be higher than in 2019, the last year when a ‘normal’ exam series took place. This will be a one year change and exam results for 2023 will return to the previous system of ‘comparable outcomes’, where the percentage of each grade varies very little from year to year.

In some of my previous blogs, I’ve talked about the need to change the way we assess pupils at 16 and 18 and I haven’t changed my opinion that the current system fails many pupils and needs radical change. However, the significant change needed here won’t happen overnight. We need to ensure that the pupils who are taking their exams next summer have the impacts of Covid-19 taken into consideration when their grades are awarded. This is particularly important for the most disadvantaged pupils, as the evidence collected nationally shows that for a number of reasons they have suffered disproportionately from disruption to their education.

It’s also very helpful to know that there is additional support for pupils who have missed big chunks of their education. This will be in the form of advanced notice of topics in some exams, so that revision can focus on topics pupils know they will be examined on. This is really important as it is impossible for pupils to have covered a whole subject syllabus in the same depth as they would have if all learning had taken place in schools as normal. The topics for exams will be published by 7th February 2022.

Pupils will also have more choice in which questions they can choose and will receive formulae sheets in Maths and Science. This poses the question as to why this doesn’t happen every year, as exams in these subjects should be testing the ability to apply concepts and complete calculations rather than remember a whole series of formulae. After all, a book of formulae is no help to someone who hasn’t mastered how to select and apply the correct formula to a question.

Finally, there are also are contingency plans in place for both further disruption where exams could still take place, and for the use of teacher assessed grades in the event of the 2022 exams being cancelled altogether. This is a very welcome change from the previous two years where government ministers insisted that exams would take place come what may and then had to cobble together a plan after cancelling exams without an alternative system of assessment in place.

It is refreshing to feel that lessons have been learned at the Department for Education and that they are again actually listening to those of us working in schools. This certainly wasn’t the case with the previous Secretary of State for Education but is an encouraging start for our new Minister.