Three week delay to next year's exams announced

The Department for Education has announced AS, A levels and GCSEs will be held three weeks later next year to help address the disruption caused by the pandemic.

The summer exam series will start on 7 June and end on 2 July for almost all AS/A levels and GCSEs and results days are Tuesday 24 August for A/AS levels and Friday 27 August for GCSEs.

Given rising case numbers and the battle to suppress the virus, consideration is being given to the range of scenarios which might impact students’ ability to sit exams and develop contingency plans.

The Education Secretary has written to Ofqual to ask the regulator to work closely with him, school and further education leaders, exam boards, unions and the higher education sector to develop these arrangements.

More detail will be published later in the Autumn, to ensure students have confidence that they will be fairly treated in terms of assessment in 2021.

One maths and one English GCSE exam will be held just before the May half-term, giving any Year 11 pupils who are affected by Covid-19 the best possible chance of still sitting a paper in each of these core subjects.

The government has also confirmed that no further subject-level changes to exams and assessments will be made for GCSEs, AS and A levels. The changes outlined by Ofqual are designed to release time for teaching and to take account of public health considerations. This confirmation gives teachers, school leaders and pupils clarity on what will be assessed in exams next summer. This follows a public consultation carried out by the exams’ regulator, Ofqual, earlier this year. Ofqual has also consulted on how assessments of vocational and technical qualifications will be adapted to free up teaching time and respond to any future public health measures.