Ofqual has committed to take action if it finds that the higher proportion of private school students getting extra time in exams is down to an unfairness in the system.
Sir Ian Bauckham, who was confirmed as Ofqual’s permanent chief regulator last week, told Tes he was “surprised” and “concerned” when the divide was revealed in figures published by the exams regulator earlier this year.
At private schools, 42 per cent of students were granted extra time last year, compared with 27 per cent in non-selective state schools and 35 per cent in sixth-form and further education colleges.
This gap was similar to the previous year, when 39 per cent of private school candidates were granted 25 per cent extra time. The proportion of students in non-selective state schools given this extra time was 24 per cent.
Extra time in exams
Education secretary Bridget Phillipson said she was concerned about the divide at the time, and asked Ofqual to investigate what was going on in more detail.
Sir Ian, speaking to Tes this week, said: “If, when we dig into the figures and get under the surface, we find something is happening that isn’t fair to all candidates, whatever school they’re in, then we will take action.
“I’m concerned by it, which is why we’re doing this extra work.”
Any action Ofqual takes would “relate to awarding organisations”, and would “depend on what we find”, he added.
“This involves complex work but could potentially see results from this analysis before the end of the year.”
Overall, the number of approved requests for access arrangements, including extra time, jumped by 12.3 per cent last year, compared with the previous year.
Students can request extra time because of a special educational need or disability (SEND), having English as an additional language or because of a mental health condition.
Sir Ian was confirmed as Ofqual’s permanent chief regulator last week after having led the exams regulator on an interim basis for just over a year. He was previously CEO of the Tenax Schools Trust.
He said his priorities as chief regulator will be ensuring standards and trust in qualifications, feeding into digital and artificial-intelligence developments, and wider qualifications reform as government policy changes.
Sir Ian previously warned that a move towards digital exams would need to come alongside a wider project to digitise education, to ensure that some students without online access are not left behind.
He expanded on this speaking to Tes, saying that, in qualifications taken at school, there had to be “a link between the way a subject is assessed for qualification, on one hand, and the way it is taught on another”.
“If the world of a young person is biro and exercise book, on the one hand, it’s rather odd to think about qualifications being digital in those subjects for those students, on the other,” he added.
Several exam boards have laid out plans for certain qualifications to move online, subject to Ofqual approval. AQA has delayed its original plan to have GCSE Italian and Polish online exams from 2026.
Sir Ian told Tes that Ofqual is having regular discussions with awarding organisations, and he expects submissions for digitising high-stakes qualifications “in the next year or two”.
Marking and AI
The Department for Education recently announced a raft of measures to use technology to shorten time-consuming processes in education, including training up teachers on how to use AI to reduce admin and how to use technology to support children with special educational needs and disabilities.
However, when it comes to exams, Ofqual has previously told awarding organisations that AI cannot currently be used as a sole marker of students’ work.
Sir Ian told Tes that using AI for marking could present issues when marks are challenged.
“If there was a review-of-marking request, and let’s say the essay has been marked only by AI, not by a human at all, who does the review?” he said.
“If a human does the review and says, ‘The AI got this wrong. This essay was marked too harshly - it should be marked more generously,’ does that mean all of the essays marked by the AI are thrown into question?
“That might be tens of thousands.”
The review of curriculum and assessment
Sir Ian is also currently observing the discussions on the review curriculum and assessment, which is expected to report this year.
He said designing any new qualifications as a result of the review would be a “multi-year process”.
He added that Ofqual would have to “wait and see” if there are any changes to English and maths GCSEs - and to know the extent of these changes - before it would know if changes were needed to things like the National Reference Test (NRT).
The NRT helps Ofqual to monitor standards in English and maths GCSEs over time. The most recent results showed a downward trend in English language performance at grade 4, and an upward change at grade 7 in maths.
“One of the things I’d like to be able to achieve in these early years in post is a stronger understanding among school leaders in particular, but also the teaching workforce more widely, of how standards are set and maintained in GCSEs and A levels,” Sir Ian told Tes.
He emphasised that examiners do not set grade boundaries to ensure that the same number of students get a particular grade but to maintain standards over time.
Asked if he thought there were some misconceptions about this in the sector, he said: “I think it is quite a complex concept to understand.
“What people get in the summer is published tables showing what percentage of people have got which grade. And it’s very easy to think that’s the bit we control. We don’t control that.”
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