Contingency exams to be held for A Levels

[Ciri]

Curious. Anyone have any knowledge about why this might be. DfE have told schools they need contingency A Levels in case the summer exams don’t go ahead..

They've done it since covid. Same for gcses.

There is an exams contingency day every year and has been since way before covid.

It used to be in case the Queen died. Now its in case of national disruption to public exams. Applies to all public summer exams.

It's a day the exams can be moved to if there are any issues with the day they are meant to be held (usual example was death of the Queen).

No it isn’t a contingency day. Schools have been told then need to hold exams prior to the summer to be used for grading in case summer exams are cancelled

My youngest is 19 but I remember being told at their GCSE and A Level time that the school advised no holidays are booked before contingency day - people took the chance but they had to advise against it.

Assuming it’s in case covid blows up but you’d have thought it unlikely

It isn’t the contingency day I’m talking about. It’s full exams for cags

It’s just to build resilience in to the exam system in the very unlikely event that anything like covid ever happens again

@Ciri That’s not new. You’ve always needed some sort of data incase kids are ill / hit by a bus on the way to their exams / abducted by aliens etc

Where have you heard about this?

Could you share the DfE link please?

My reply was assuming you meant exams before the exams, not the date set aside after.
They did it last year too, it's to prevent the situation they found themselves in when covid hit because that was a nightmare for all involved and there's no way of knowing when a new virus might hit.
It's usually just done as a set of mock exams.

Schools have been told to keep the kids' mock papers in school, (one set only) not hold special exams.

We’ve just had a letter from school. Announcement was made on 30th November. From ofqual

In summer I would suspect it would be more likely concerns over ongoing striking or issues due to a worsening cost of living crisis than it would be covid.

The school where I teach has just done GCSE Mocks with Y11, and we were told to scan all of the answer papers in case needed because of exam cancellations. Presumably this is the same but for A levels (we do our mocks in February for them)?

Here’s the consultation result doc. It’s a worst case scenario preparation.

www.gov.uk/government/consultations/ensuring-the-resilience-of-the-qualifications-system-in-2023-gcse-as-a-level-project-and-aea/ensuring-the-resilience-of-the-qualifications-system-in-2023-gcse-as-a-level-project-and-aea

DfE outline is usual mocks and what schools would usually do anyway and it explicity states they do not expect schools to run any additional internal assessments.

I saw this OP, it was basically saying schools need to AGAIN get CAGs together in case Covid again wrecks the summer exam schedule. Applies to both GCSEs and Alevels.

Link to official update

I dislike the additional pressure these bring to students. It means very intense work for mocks and then possible burn out before the actual exams.

Ah sorry, hadn’t seen it had already been posted.

No, schools don’t need to get CAGs together. We need to keep a copy of mock exams in case we need to get CAGs together. Not the same thing.