Exam resits in Autumn will receive same "generosity" as summer cohort

Ofqual has said that Autumn exam resits will receive the same “generosity” in their grades as was awarded this summer.

Pupils are able to resit exams starting from late October if they were unhappy or not issued a grade this summer.

Ofqual has confirmed that grade boundaries will be lowered for these exams to ensure that pupils taking resits receive the same “generosity” as those in the summer.

Ofqual said in its blog: "Recently we published provisional entry numbers for the AS and A level autumn series which started on 5 October. This exceptional exam series was put in place to give students who were disappointed with their grade in the summer the opportunity to take an exam to try to improve their grade, and to give those private candidates who were unable to get a grade in the summer the opportunity to take an exam. To be as fair as we can to those students, we are working with exam boards to carry forward the generosity from summer 2020 grades, the majority of which were based on centre assessment grades."

The blog continues to say that students sitting exams this autumn must be treated as fairly as possible: "We are also clear that students sitting exams this autumn must be treated as fairly as possible, alongside students from summer 2020. As such, examiners will be guided by proxy grade boundaries. Exam boards will generate these by looking at how far the 2019 grade boundaries for each specification would have to move to achieve the proportion of students at the key grades we saw for each of those specifications in summer 2020. Archive student work, as well as several other sources of evidence about where grade boundaries should be set, will also be considered."