Examination boards have been instructed to be extra beneficiant when grading French, German and pc science GCSEs this 12 months, The Instances stories.
Exams regulator Ofqual has mentioned examination boards ought to modify grading requirements for the themes, significantly within the higher vary.
Main educators had complained about “extreme grading” in fashionable languages for a few years, stressing that essentially the most ready kids had been being delay the themes as a result of they had been much less more likely to get high grades at GCSE.
In 2019, adjustments to the system had been promised, however the plans had been delayed by the pandemic.
Final summer season, Ofqual instructed examination boards to award extra generously at grades 9, 7 and 4 in GCSE French and German.
However final week, the regulator mentioned it was requiring examination boards to make a “additional optimistic adjustment” in GCSE German (grades 9, 7 and 4) and GCSE French (grades 7 and 4), to align them extra carefully with the Spanish GCSE.
Ofqual analysis additionally discovered that grading requirements in GCSE pc science “could have grow to be barely extra stringent” between 2014 to 2019 because of adjustments to the qualification and the cohort.
The regulator has mentioned that it requires examination boards to “mirror analysis findings” when setting grade boundaries this summer season, and “award extra generously at grades 9, 7 and 4.”
Julie McCulloch, director of coverage at college leaders’ affiliation ASCL, mentioned they welcomed Ofqual’s announcement.
She added: “Notably welcome is the finalising of changes to grading in GCSE French and German…Presently pupils are too typically left incorrectly pondering that their capacity in fashionable languages isn’t as excessive as in different English Baccalaureate topics.”
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