With exam season well underway thoughts will be turning to results days in August. This summer's GCSEs, AS and and A levels have returned to more normality since Covid, but there have been some alterations to take into account pandemic disruption.
Summer 2023 results are expected to be lower than the record high grades awarded on teacher assessment in 2020 and lower than results in 2021 and 2022, but still higher than pre-pandemic. Exams have always varied each year, regardless of Covid changes, so grade boundaries are used to help achieve fairness.
Grade boundaries are the minimum number of marks needed to achieve each grade and vary each year to reflect differences in papers. They are published by exam boards on results days and are aimed at ensuring that whenever the exam is sat, students receive the same grade for the same level of performance. To get our free daily briefing on the biggest issues affecting the nation, Wales Matters here
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Each exam board has different boundaries, so candidates should check the correct board for the exams they sat. Most students in mainstream schools in Wales sit exams with the WJEC.
Results are presented differently depending on whether the qualification is unitised or linear. For unitised - also known as modular - qualifications, results will display an overall uniform mark (UMS) and a grade for the subject.
For linear qualifications - that’s maths, maths numeracy, Welsh language and, English literature - results will display the overall grade for the subject. The mark for individual components will also be displayed.
The WJEC says it is not possible to say how many marks a candidate needs overall or at each unit for each grade for unitised exams because candidates can sit assessments at different times and the weighting for each assessment varies. But all unitised schemes use an agreed uniform mark scale (UMS) to report the result of each unit and subject awards.
In Wales grading will be more generous than pre-pandemic and will be set midway between 2019 results, the last sat summer exams pre-pandemic, and 2022. Exam board the WJEC gave students and teachers some advance information of topics, themes, texts and other content to expect in this summer's papers. English exam boards, used by some schools in Wales, did not give advance warning and there have been no changes to WJEC exam content as there were for 2021 and 2022.
Record results were posted during the pandemic and critics have argued that grades were inflated when exams were cancelled and results awarded on teacher assessment in 2020 and 2021. The aim now is to steady the system back but also take account of Covid disruption to learning.
Announcing its post-Covid approach exam regulator Qualifications Wales said last autumn that the intention was for summer 2023 results to fall broadly midway between the 2019 and 2022 results. It said this would takes into account the disruption experienced by learners during the pandemic and the fact that AS qualifications and some GCSE units were awarded in 2022 – using a different grading approach - and that will have an impact on summer 2023 grading.
"The move signals the next step on the Welsh qualification system's journey back to pre-pandemic assessment arrangements, whilst also maintaining support for learners, schools and colleges with advance information and a supportive approach to grading," the regulator said.
The current trajectory means that there will be a return to pre-pandemic standards in 2024, Qualification Wales added.
For England GCSE, AS, and A level exams largely returned to pre-pandemic arrangements this summer. But prior attainment and grades achieved by previous exam years will be considered when grading there.
"To protect students against the disruption of recent years, and in case students’ performance is slightly lower than before the pandemic, senior examiners will use the grades achieved by previous cohorts of pupils, along with prior attainment data, to inform their decisions about where to set grade boundaries," the DofE said.
A and AS results will be out on August 17. GCSE results will be out on August 24.
All the results out on August 17 in Wales:
- AS/A Level
- Level 3 Applied Certificates and Diplomas
- Skills Challenge Certificate – WBQ Advanced
- Extended Project
- Foundation Diploma in Art and Design
- Health and Social Care/ Children’s Care Play Learning and Development (Wales)
All the results out on August 24 in Wales :
- GCSE
- Level 1/2 Vocational Awards and Certificates
- Entry Level
- Level 1&2 Certificates (Latin and Additional Maths)
- Language Pathways
- Skills Challenge Certificate – Welsh Baccalaureate Qualification National/Foundation
- Cymraeg Gwaith
Read next:
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- One in five children in Wales are now regularly missing school
- Teenager left with devastating disabilities after a school rugby game achieves top marks at GCSEs
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