Following the decision to close schools and not go ahead with this summer’s exams, the government has announced more details of how grades will be awarded this summer. I know how keen you are to have some clarity, so I wanted to share this information with you right away. Please follow this link to the OfQual and DfE Guidance that was published on Friday 20^th March.

https://www.gov.uk/government/news/update-following-announcement-on-exams-and-grades

• Regulators will develop and set out a process that will provide a calculated grade to each student which reflects their performance as fairly as possible, and will work with us and the other exam boards to ensure this is consistently applied for all students.
• Exam boards will be asking teachers, who know their students well, to submit their judgement about the grade that they believe the student would have received if exams had gone ahead.
• Exam boards will then combine this information with other relevant data, including prior attainment, and use this information to produce a calculated grade for each student, which will be a best assessment of the work they have put in.
• The aim is to provide these calculated grades to students before the end of July.
• These grades will be indistinguishable from those provided in other years. The aim is to ensure that the distribution of grades follows a similar pattern to that in other years, so that this year’s students aren’t disadvantaged.
• Students will be able to appeal their grades if they don’t believe the right process has been followed.
• There will also be an option to sit exams early in the next academic year for any students who wish to – and students can also choose to sit exams next summer.

I hope this new information will answer some of your questions – but I appreciate that you may still have some. We are asking you not to contact individual members of staff asking about specific grades at this time. We’re here to support you through these extraordinary times, and we’ll share new details as soon as we get them.

Kind Regards

Miriam Casey

Exams Officer

exams@garthhillcollege.com