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Exam chief denies more able pupils will find 2022 GCSEs too easy
Exam chief denies more able pupils will find 2022 GCSEs too easy

Jo Saxton, Ofqual's chief regulator, said that the release of advance information on the kinds of topics pupils will see in their exams would not give higher-ability pupils an advantage
Changes to this year's GCSE and A-level exams will not make them easier for more able pupils - despite being told months in advance which topics will come up, the head of the Government exam regulator has said.
Because of the disruption caused to learning by the pandemic, pupils in England will be offered a choice of topics in some GCSE exams, such as English literature, history, ancient history and geography, as well as exam aids next summer.
For subjects where a choice of topics is not provided, advance notice on the focus of exam content will be given in February to help with revision.
In a speech to the Sixth Form Colleges Association conference earlier in January, Jo Saxton, Ofqual's chief regulator, said that the release of advance information on the kinds of topics pupils will see in their exams would not give higher-ability pupils an advantage.
Pupils will be given information on February 7 to help focus their revision to answer questions carrying more marks - higher-tariff questions - whereas advance information will not be provided for simpler one or two-mark questions.
'Of course, much of the advance information gives a steer on how to revise for higher tariff questions, although not all of it,' Ms Saxton said.

'Bluntly, to focus advance information on low tariff questions would be nonsensical.
'It would be silly to publish a document that says something like; you will be asked to identify the year in which the Versailles Treaty was signed, or the year in which Magna Carta was signed.

Clearly, at argumentative research paper topics , the exam would stop being an exam.'
Pupils will be given information on February 7 to help focus their revision to answer questions carrying more marks - higher-tariff questions - whereas advance information will not be provided for simpler one or two-mark questions (stock image)
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But she added that questions carrying more marks did not necessarily mean 'harder content', as pupils of any ability gained marks across an exam paper.
'We hope that the benefit of advance information will mean that students who suffered the most disruption, or those who are less able, may gain confidence to tackle elements of a paper that they might previously not have felt confident to try,' she announced.
Ms Saxton said that giving pupils advance information about the topics covered in their exams would have been 'unthinkable' in 'normal times', but that the changes had been designed before a 'difficult winter' last year, to make exams 'less daunting' to pupils.
Exam boards had 'done their absolute level best' to create focused revision aids, and this was 'definitely an art rather than a science'.
'If they'd gone too close to revealing the questions it would have undermined exams and turned them into short-term memory tests,' she said.
Ms Saxton announced that GCSE and A-level grading would not be set by any 'single statistical midpoint' between 2019 and 2021 grading.

Grading standards in 2022 will be set between the standards of 2019, when full public exams were last sat, and 2021, when teacher-assessed grades were awarded.
But 'there will be no standardisation model to determine students' grades', she said.
In 2020, the Government initially planned to use an algorithm to determine pupils' exam grades but were forced to U-turn over the issue and award grades assessed by pupils' teachers instead, after thousands of pupils received grades well below what they had expected on A-level results' day.
Ms Saxton added that the Government had heard that universities could set their own tests for candidates to sit or raise their entry grade requirements if grades in 2022 were as generous as those in 2021, when 44.3% of grades in England were awarded the top A or A* grades.
But she added: 'Our grading requirements will provide a safety net for this cohort and it is likely to mean that results overall are higher than in normal years.'



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