Exam bosses have explained why A-level results are lower in Wales this year and why they think it is fair and necessary. Regulator Qualifications Wales said outcomes will be “broadly similar to pre-pandemic” at a national level, with the way exams were run and marked returned to pre-Covid conditions. Students across Wales are picking up their results today, August 15 and you can follow live updates here.
Although results will be lower than in 2023 and more in line with when exams were last sat with no extra help in 2019, it’s likely there will be variation for different subjects and schools. Grade boundaries will also be tougher meaning more marks will be needed to achieve grades.
Qualifications Wales has published its report on approaches to summer 2024 exams as it reins back grades to be in line with pre-Covid results. The regulator said that after exceptional arrangements during Covid a “return to normal” after four years was needed to maintain public confidence in qualifications; retain value of qualifications and fairness in the system; and come in line with other parts of UK to support “portability of Welsh qualifications."
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The last few years saw record results posted when exams were cancelled in 2020 and 2021 and results given on teacher assessments. Exams were then sat in 2022 and 2023 but with extra support and help to mitigate for Covid disruption to candidates’ education, which also saw higher than pre-Covid grades.
This summer saw the end of those moves back and results should be more comparable to those in 2019, the regulator said. The Qualification Wales report on the summer 2024 exam approach published this morning, August 15,says: “The summer 2024 series represents our final step on the transition back towards pre- pandemic arrangements in qualifications. Overall results are broadly in line with those in 2019.
“We expected that national results would generally be below those in 2023 because the broadly midway grading policy for Made-for-Wales qualifications provided by (exam board) WJEC had been removed.”
The report adds that exam bosses “knew there was a risk that performance in some subjects may not have recovered from disruption caused by the pandemic”. To address this there was “a safety net where necessary” in the standard setting, awarding and results for A-levels, AS and GCSEs.
“Over the last three years, there has been a transition back towards pre-pandemic arrangements. In 2023 the aim was for outcomes to be broadly midway between those for summer 2022 and 2019. In 2022 the aim was for outcomes to be broadly 0midway between those for summer 2021 and summer 2019.
“We announced our approach for this summer in a letter to schools and colleges in September 2023. The policy aim was for outcomes to be broadly similar to pre-pandemic outcomes. This meant that 2024 would signal the final step on the Welsh qualification system’s journey back to pre-pandemic arrangements, whilst still supporting this year’s cohort of learners.
“We expected that removal of the broadly midway policy would lead to national outcomes generally being lower than they were in 2023. We also expected there to be variation in how overall outcomes compared to pre-pandemic outcomes at an individual centre level.
“We understood that there was still a risk that, this year, learner performance in some subjects may not have recovered sufficiently, meaning outcomes in those subjects may have fallen substantially below outcomes in 2019. Where necessary, statistical protection could be applied during the setting of grade boundaries to prevent this from happening.”
Grade boundaries for 2024 results were set to achieve outcomes “broadly similar” to pre-pandemic outcomes. Qualifications Wales said the WJEC exam board implemented this through its awarding process, when awarding committees recommended grade boundaries at key grades.
That means students will need more marks to achieve higher grades this year: “2024 is the final year on the transition back to pre-pandemic arrangements. We anticipate that grade boundaries will generally rise as the impact of the pandemic diminishes and we return to established performance standards.”
The regulator said that the different awarding arrangements between 2020 and 2024, results mean they are not directly comparable to each other or to results in previous years. Join our WhatsApp community group where you can get the latest stories delivered straight to your phone.
A-level entries have fallen
The report adds that in Wales provisional A-level entry figures fell by 2.3% compared to summer 2023 and fell by 0.6% compared to summer 2019, although AS entries were slightly up.
How A-level entries have varied over the Covid years and before
This is what people thought of exams this summer
Qualifications Wales said its annual “Have Your Say” showed general satisfaction with how exams had gone this summer, but among the several hundred responses most learners felt exams were too hard.
Respondents were asked to comment on the difficulty of the exams, whether they assessed the specification fairly, whether there was enough time and for general comments on the qualifications. On the difficulty of exams, just over half of the learners who responded thought the exam(s) was (were) too difficult and just under half of the teachers who responded were in agreement.
Regarding timing of the exams, around two thirds of the learners and teachers who responded thought there was enough time, or too much time, allocated to candidates for completion of the exam(s).
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