Warning that exam grades will fall back

The government says very few schools and colleges will get better results than in 2021 when grades were awarded by teacher assessment due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

It comes after students sat GCSE, AS and A-level exams for the first time since 2019, with grades set to drop this summer, and then again in 2023, as part of a transition back to pre-pandemic arrangements.

In an interview with the PA news agency, Mr Quince said: “Over the past of couple years, we’ve had extraordinary times because of the pandemic and we’ve had to take extraordinary steps, quite exceptional steps, which have led to higher grades.”

But he added: “Actually what young people and universities and employers are telling us (is) that exams are the best and fairest method for assessment and that it’s really important that we move back as quickly as possible to a position where qualifications maintain their value.”

To mitigate the potential loss of learning over the pandemic, Mr Quince said this year’s exams have had “a number of adaptions to make it fairer and to reflect the disruption that young people have faced”.

These include giving students advance information on the content of some exams, a choice on which questions students could answer and carefully spaced timetables as well as reducing work experience hours on vocational qualifications.