Summer 2021 GCSE and A Level exams to start later giving students ‘more time to prepare for their exams next year’

The Department for Education (DfE) today announced that GCSE, AS and A Level exams will go ahead next summer but will start three weeks later, to support students and teachers. The government is committed to exams going ahead as the ‘fairest and most accurate way to measure a pupil’s attainment’.

The key points about exams in summer 2021 announced today are:

• For almost all AS, A Level and GCSE exams, the summer exam series will start on 7 June and end on 2 July 2021.
• One exam for GCSE English and one for GCSE Maths will take place before half term. This aims to give Year 11 pupils affected by COVID-19 the best chance of sitting a paper in each of these core subjects. Exams for a small number of low-entry AS and A Level subjects will also be held before half term.
• Results days are Tuesday 24 August for AS and A Levels and Friday 27 August for GCSEs. Students ‘will start the following academic year as normal’.
• In addition, the Government is working with Ofqual, exam boards and across the education sector to develop contingency plans. It will ‘engage widely with the sector over the next six weeks to identify any risks to exams at a national, local, and individual student level, and consider measures needed to address any potential disruption’.
• The DfE also confirmed there will be no further subject-level changes to exams and assessments. Ofqual announced arrangements to free-up time for teaching and take account of public health concerns, following a consultation.

To support the DfE’s announcement, the Joint Council for Qualifications (JCQ) issued a statement on working collaboratively to support students and teachers and to meet the timescales for next summer’s exams. The JCQ will shortly be publishing a consultation on the summer 2021 exam timetable.

We know that students and teachers will also be concerned about assessments for Cambridge Nationals and Cambridge Technicals in summer 2021. We plan to align our exam timetable and results days for Cambridge Nationals and Cambridge Technicals with the dates that have been set out for GCSEs and A Levels. We’ll be in touch with the final details of the summer 2021 exam timetable for our VTQs shortly.