The Exam House — April 11, 2020

Letter from schools to private and resit candidates in summer 2020

The Exam House Exam Blog has obtained a letter from schools to parents as to why they are refunding and cancelling outside candidates for GCSE and A level. We have copied the unredacted ‘Identification removed’ content below:

Grading of GCSE, iGCSE and GCE exams for private and resit candidates in summer 2020

Dear candidate

I understand that the announcement of the cancellation of this summer’s GCSE, iGCSE and GCE exams has caused considerable anxiety for our private candidates and resit candidates. Unfortunately information has been slow to appear, and we have learnt what is happening from the same Ofqual and exam board statements that most of you will have been reading.

We are expecting that the communication from Ofqual on Friday the 3rd of April available here will be the last until after the Easter holiday:

https://www.gov.uk/government/news/how-gcses-as-a-levels-will-be-awarded-in-summer-2020

We therefore feel that with the deadline to withdraw entries and receive a refund of fees paid to the boards falling in the next couple of weeks we need to decide on the school’s position now.

I have consulted widely with senior colleagues and some of my counterparts in other centres, and we agree that the key wording in the latest Ofqual announcement is the following:

Heads of exam centre have been asked to provide centre assessment grades for private candidates registered to take exams with their centre and include them in the rank order where they are confident that they and their staff have seen sufficient evidence of the student’s achievement to make an objective judgement

It is our considered opinion that for private and resit candidates, even for students who are studying with a tutor or through distance learning, the school would not be able to meet the standards that will be required by the exam boards in order to grade a candidate, and the Head would not in good conscience be in a position to sign the necessary supporting declaration.

P.T.O.

We also feel that with 450 of our own candidates for whom we have to gather evidence, and the school effectively closed for the foreseeable future, trying to liaise with multiple outside parties would be nigh on impossible.

Those of you below Year 11 (i.e. you will not be 16 years of age by the 31st of August 2020) could also be affected by the suggestion that:

We propose that exam boards will not issue grades for students in year 10 or below

We have therefore made the difficult decision that we will need to withdraw the entries of all private and resit candidates for this summer’s exams, which means that you will not receive a grade for any subject.

I understand that this outcome will be very disappointing for many of you. I can only ask you to accept that we did not come to this conclusion lightly, but after due consideration of all the information available to us it was felt to be the only way forward.

There are now two options available to you:

Defer your entries until a future season. For CIE this would normally be in November 2020 (for most qualifications) or June 2021. Edexcel iGCSEs would normally mostly available in January 2021. For other boards and any qualifications not available sooner the first opportunity to enter would normally be in June 2021. A very small number of students resitting GCSE Maths and/or English Language should be able to do this in November.

Please note that there is some discussion in the Ofqual release of a season in September or later in autumn, but there is very little detail on how this would be arranged. It is not certain that the school would be able to cope logistically with a full season at this time of year, and we will need to await further information before deciding whether offering a full set of exams so early in the school year would be possible.

If you choose the above option the school will absorb any increase in fees imposed by the exam boards, and any incidental costs arising such as those connected with invigilation etc.

We Believe there will be the full array of exams in the autumn 2021. Accept a full refund of the fees that you have paid to the school (including the administration element).

If you choose this option, and subsequently decide to enter after all then:

You will have to pay any increase in fees that comes into force from September
We cannot guarantee that we will have capacity for everyone wanting to take an exam privately, and will in any event give priority to our current Year 11 and 13 students who may wish to retake exams next year if they remain dissatisfied with the grade they are awarded by the process in place for them this summer.

I cannot at present say at what point it will be possible to make any refunds for those candidates choosing option (2), as there is unlikely to be anyone available in school to process them until we are able to reopen. You will understand that there is currently no indication of when this might happen.

P.T.O.

If you are entered for more than one subject at X this year, you will be able to choose different options for different subjects.

We do not need a definitive answer at this point as to which option(s) you wish to exercise. However it would be very helpful if you could give us an indication of what you are likely to decide by replying to the email to which this letter was attached, and this will also serve as confirmation that you have received this communication.

I will contact you again when the situation is clearer and ask for confirmation of how you wish to proceed at that point. I think it is quite likely that this may not be until May or even June however.

In the meantime I can only ask and thank you for your understanding in the present exceptional circumstances.

Yours sincerely

If you need help and guidance please get in touch with the Exam House.