Government Response

The Government responded to this petition on Tuesday 26th January 2021

Students will not be asked to sit GCSE, AS and A level exams this summer as planned in light of the ongoing impact of the covid-19 pandemic.

Instead, it is the Government’s policy (which it is consulting on jointly with Ofqual) that a form of teacher assessment should be used.

The Government has announced that, from 5 January 2021, schools and colleges should move to remote provision, except for vulnerable children and children of critical workers. We recognise that Year 11 and 13 students who were due to take exams in 2021, and their parents, carers and teachers, are concerned about the disruption to education caused by the COVID-19 outbreak.

While the Department continues to believe that exams are the best way of judging students’ performance, we cannot guarantee all students will be in a position to fairly sit their exams this summer. We have therefore confirmed that GCSEs, A and AS level exams will not go ahead this summer as planned, and we are consulting on options to enable candidates to receive a grade.

The Government has confirmed that a form of teacher-assessed grades should be used, with training and support provided to teachers to ensure these are awarded fairly and consistently. Working with Ofqual, we are consulting on how to fairly award all pupils, including students taking vocational qualifications, with a grade that ensures they can progress to the next stage of their lives.

We will build on the joint stakeholder engagement that Ofqual and DfE undertook last year and engage with as many people as possible in an open and transparent way to consider the main options and their implications, including, seeking the views of the students and their parents.

Further details of alternative arrangements to exams will be confirmed following the conclusion of the consultation process , providing clarity to the sector and ensuring that students have the confidence that they will be fairly treated in terms of assessment in 2021.

To help support students and schools during school closures, we have updated the remote education guidance for schools and FE providers to clarify and strengthen expectations while on-site attendance is restricted, drawing on our evolving understanding of best practice in remote education. A comprehensive package of support continues to be available to schools to help them meet these expectations. Schools can find further support via the Get Help with Remote Education page on gov.uk (https://www.gov.uk/guidance/get-help-with-remote-education).

We have invested £400 million to support access to remote education and online social care, with over 800,000 laptops and tablets delivered to schools and local authorities in 2020. We are adding to this support by making further laptops available - bringing the total to over 1.3 million laptops and tablets available to support disadvantaged children.

We have already announced a package worth £1 billion to ensure that schools have the resources they need to help all pupils make up for lost teaching time. This package includes a universal catch-up premium of £650 million and £350 million for a National Tutoring Programme for disadvantaged pupils. We have also announced a 16-19 Tuition Fund, allocating up to £96m as a one-off, one-year, ring-fenced grant to school sixth forms, colleges and all other 16-19 providers. This will provide small group tutoring activity for disadvantaged 16-19 students whose studies have been disrupted as a result of COVID-19.

The government is clear that the school curriculum should remain broad and ambitious, and all students should continue to be taught a wide range of subjects, maintaining their choices for further study and employment.

Department for Education

Parliamentary Debate

This petition was debated in Parliament on Monday 15th March 2021

See Debate Details