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Guidance

Awarding qualifications in summer 2020

Information for schools, students and parents on how GCSE, AS, A level, vocational and technical qualifications will be graded and awarded in summer 2020.

Updates to this page

From:
Ofqual
Published:
3 April 2020
Last updated:
11 August 2020
Show all updates

  1. Arrangements for the assessment and awarding of Vocational and Technical Qualifications and Other General Qualifications in 2020 to 2021 guidance document link added to the General resources for Vocational Qualifications section.

  2. Guidance for teachers, students, parents and carers: Summer 2020 grades for GCSE, AS and A level, Extended Project Qualification and Advanced Extension Award in maths document updated. VTQ awarding organisation appeals and complaints links guidance added to General resources for Vocational Qualifications section.

  3. Added details about the attached 'Awarding organisation results information'.

  4. Updated VTQ guidance for centres and awarding organisation data information added.

  5. Guidance for teachers, students, parents and carers: Summer 2020 grades for GCSE, AS and A level, Extended Project Qualification and Advanced Extension Award in maths updated to reflect the information we released following our summer symposium.

  6. Updated links to include content from Ofqual's Summer Symposium, held on Tuesday 21 July 2020 and a factsheet & video for centres on awarding grades in summer 2020.

  7. Summer 2020 grades for GCSE, AS and A level, Extended Project Qualification and Advanced Extension Award in maths: Guidance for teachers, students, parents and carers document updated to reflect autumn 2020 consultation decision outcomes and 2021 exam series consultation proposals.

  8. Letter to Heads of Centre - Awarding results in vocational and technical qualifications in summer 2020 added to document list.

  9. Private candidate policy update and Update on summer 2020 GCSEs, AS and A level grades for students in year 10 and below and for private candidates moved to Exceptional arrangements for exam grading and assessment in 2020. Guidance for teachers, students, parents and carers: Summer 2020 results for vocational, technical and other qualifications removed. Superseded by Summer 2020 results for vocational, technical and other qualifications.

  10. Letter to Heads of Centre - general qualifications Summer 2020 arrangements added to documents.

  11. Updated Guidance for teachers, students, parents and carers: Summer 2020 grades for GCSE, AS and A level, Extended Project Qualification and Advanced Extension Award in maths.

  12. Changed to include updated guidance documents for centres and for teachers, students, parents and carers.

  13. Guidance for Heads of Centre, Heads of Department and teachers on objectivity in grading and ranking document added.

  14. Guidance for Centres - The awarding of vocational and technical qualifications, and other general qualifications, in summer 2020 added.

  15. Guidance for teachers, students, parents and carers document updated to reflect the policy update on year 10 and private candidates.

  16. Update on summer 2020 GCSEs, AS and A level grades for students in year 10 and below and for private candidates added.

  17. Private candidate policy update added.

  18. Guidance for vocational, technical and other qualifications updated to reflect consultation on grading arrangements for summer 2020.

  19. Added a BSL signed version of the letter to students.

  20. First published.

This publication was withdrawn on

The guidance published on this page, relating to the awarding and appeals processes for GCSE, AS and A level in summer 2020, was published before the decision made on 17 August 2020 to award centre assessment grades and may not apply to this summer’s qualification results. For information on the appeals process, please refer to: gov.uk/your-results-what-next

Applies to England

Documents

Guidance for teachers, students, parents and carers: Summer 2020 grades for GCSE, AS and A level, Extended Project Qualification and Advanced Extension Award in maths

Ref: Ofqual/20/6662

PDF, 376 KB, 26 pages

Information for Heads of Centre, Heads of Department and teachers on the submission of Centre assessment grades: Summer 2020 grades for GCSE, AS and A level, Extended Project Qualification and Advanced Extension Award in maths

Ref: Ofqual/20/6614/2

PDF, 251 KB, 19 pages

Letter to students - summer 2020 grading

PDF, 154 KB, 3 pages

Letter to students - summer 2020 grading

HTML

Letter to students - summer 2020 grading - BSL signed

HTML

Letter to Heads of Centre - general qualifications Summer 2020 arrangements

PDF, 144 KB, 3 pages

Letter to Heads of Centre - general qualifications Summer 2020 arrangements

HTML

Guidance for teachers, students, parents and carers: Summer 2020 results for vocational, technical and other qualifications

Ref: Ofqual/20/6620/3

PDF, 390 KB, 28 pages

Guidance for Centres - The awarding of vocational and technical qualifications, and other general qualifications, in summer 2020

Ref: Ofqual/20/6647

PDF, 331 KB, 13 pages

Letter to Heads of Centre - Awarding results in vocational and technical qualifications in summer 2020

PDF, 105 KB, 5 pages

Letter to Heads of Centre - Awarding results in vocational and technical qualifications in summer 2020

HTML

Guidance for Heads of Centre, Heads of Department and teachers on objectivity in grading and ranking

Ref: Ofqual/20/6618

PDF, 196 KB, 5 pages

Summer Symposium 2020 slide pack

MS PowerPoint Presentation, 1.8 MB

Standardising grades in summer 2020: a fact sheet for centres and stakeholders

Ref: Ofqual/20/6641

PDF, 693 KB, 3 pages

Awarding organisation results information

CSV, 7.53 KB

View online

Details

Since the Secretary of State for Education announced that the 2020 exam series in England would be cancelled to help fight the spread of Coronavirus (COVID-19), we have worked at speed to develop a process which fairly recognises students’ work and makes sure they get their grades in time to progress. You will find on this page details about how qualifications will be awarded this summer, further guidance for teachers, students, parents and carers and an open letter to students who were expecting to be taking their exams this summer.

Results data release – information provided by awarding organisations

In June 2020 Ofqual sought information from all awarding organisations about their method for providing results data to centres and in what format they could provide downloadable files that would reduce the need for time-consuming manual handling of the data.

This was in response to centres raising concerns about receiving a lot of data in a short period of time before results days which requires manual handling to get results out to learners.

A digest of awarding organisations’ responses is provided in . We have not included information from those who indicated that the questions were not applicable to them.

Please note that since this information was gathered Ofqual has contacted awarding organisations to ask them to prioritise the release of results data for certificating learners on level 2 and level 3 qualifications that carry UCAS points or that are used for progression to further or higher education, and setting expectations for the timing and format of release of data. Some of the details set out in the table may have been superseded as a result.

Guidance for general qualifications

The attached guidance applying just to general qualifications is:

Guidance for Vocational Qualifications

The attached guidance applying just to Vocational Qualifications is:

Other guidance

Summer Symposium

Calculating grades in GCSE, AS and A levels in summer 2020: a video for centres and stakeholders

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