Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment he has made of the potential effect of school absences as a result of covid-19 on the assessments of students planned for summer 2022.

The department is monitoring the path of the COVID-19 outbreak and its impact on education closely, including through attendance data. It remains the government’s firm intention that exams and assessments will go ahead in 2022.

The department and Ofqual consulted on and announced a range of adaptations to exams and assessments over this academic year. We engaged with a range of stakeholders, including students and parents, on these measures and sought to ensure that students have breadth of knowledge, whilst also giving them support with focusing revision. In the interests of fairness to students, Ofqual has also confirmed that 2022 will be a transition year for grading and has set out its plans for a mid-point between 2021 and pre-outbreak grades. This reflects that we are in a COVID-19 recovery period and students taking exams in 2022 have experienced disruption to their education.

The government understands that contingency arrangements are also needed to deal with the unlikely event that exams cannot go ahead fairly or safely.  Following a joint consultation with Ofqual, the department has confirmed that, should exams not be able to go ahead, students will receive teacher assessed grades (TAGs) instead. The changes to the TAGs process take account of lessons learned from 2021 and minimises burdens on both teachers and students. We have also published contingency plans for vocational and technical qualifications, which seek to achieve parity and consistency where relevant with the arrangements proposed for GCSEs and AS/A levels.

The department understands that there will be specific instances where pupils who test positive for COVID-19 or present with COVID-19 symptoms cannot attend school on site but are well enough to learn from home. A comprehensive package of support continues to be available to schools to help them meet expectations for remote education, accessible at: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/get-help-with-remote-education.