Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether schools and colleges will be required to collect further evidence of students' work in the event that exams are cancelled in response to the covid-19 outbreak.

The government is fully committed to exams going ahead this summer and does not expect that to change except in the unlikely case of a public health emergency that prevents students being able physically to sit exams. However, it is right that contingency arrangements are in place.

For GCSEs, AS and A levels, Ofqual guidance published in November 2021 asked schools and colleges to collect evidence of their students’ performance covering the breadth of content usually seen in exams and assessment objectives. Once schools and colleges have this evidence, they are not obliged to collect any more. They should take a proportionate approach and, where sufficient evidence has already been collected, no school or college is obliged to continue collecting evidence into the summer term.