Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether students will be given information on what will be in their (a) GCSE and (b) A-level exams in England in summer 2023.

On 29 September, the Department and Ofqual confirmed exams will largely return to well-established, pre-pandemic arrangements in summer 2023.

The Department confirmed that advance information will not be provided for any exams taken in summer 2023. The Department has, however, decided that formulae and equation sheets for GCSE mathematics, physics and combined sciences exams should be provided in summer 2023, as was the case for exams in 2022. Ofqual has also confirmed a return to pre-pandemic grading in 2023. To protect pupils against the disruption of recent years, and in case pupils’ performance is slightly lower than before the COVID-19 pandemic, senior examiners will use the grades achieved by previous cohorts of pupils, along with prior attainment data, to inform their decisions on where to set grade boundaries.

These decisions reflect that while the 2023 cohort may have experienced some disruption due to the pandemic over the course of their qualifications, it has not been as significant as that experienced by pupils who received qualifications in 2022. Pupils will, for example, have had more time to cover the curriculum, practise assessments and understand education recovery programmes and interventions.