DfE and Ofqual have now confirmed the exam arrangements for students taking exams in Summer 2023: “GCSE, AS and A Level exams in England will largely return to pre-pandemic arrangements next summer as young people continue to recover from the pandemic.” Ofqual has also confirmed a return to pre-pandemic grading in the June 2023 series. 

DfE and Ofqual have launched a number of consultations around the support to protect students from the disruption of the last few years. They have confirmed this does not include advance information of exam content. The consultations relating to OCR qualifications are: 

• Resilience in the exam system – proposing that schools, colleges and exam centres should build collecting and retaining evidence of student performance into their normal arrangements for preparing students to take exams.
• Support materials – proposing carrying forward from summer 2022 the provision of support materials, in the form of formulae and revised equation sheets, in the exams for GCSE mathematics, physics and combined science. 

You have until 20 October at 11:45 pm to respond to these consultations. 

Provisional timetables now available 

Following the announcement from DfE and Ofqual, we have now published the provisional June 2023 timetables. If you have any comments on the timetables, please send your feedback to the JCQ at centresupport@jcq.org.uk by 13 October 2022. 

Results days will be on 17 August 2023 for AS and A Levels and 24 August 2023 for GCSEs. 

Options for students who cannot sit an exam 

The JCQ has confirmed the arrangements from summer 2022 will be carried forward to all future exam series – where a student is absent from an exam or assessment for an acceptable reason, they could receive a grade as long as they had completed at least one entire component of a qualification. This replaces the previous requirement for students to complete at least 25% of a qualification. 

See our separate news story for the arrangements for Cambridge Nationals and Cambridge Technicals.

If you have any questions about what you have read here, please get in touch by calling us on 01223 553998 or email at support@ocr.org.uk.