SQA exam results in Scotland and the impact on results in England

#SQAResults – @Ofqual response to recent stories on exam results in Scotland this summer and any impact on results in England 

We appreciate students, parents/carers and teachers are anxious to know whether the publication of Scottish exam results last week has any implications for results in England.

We understand this has been a very difficult year for students, who have not had the chance to prove their knowledge and skills in exams. We want to reassure students that the arrangements in place this summer are the fairest possible to enable them to move on to further study or employment as planned – with grades which are just as valuable as in any other year.

The grades students receive on Thursday will be based on the judgement of their school or college, and have been moderated by exam boards to make sure the same standard is applied for all students, whichever school, college or part of the country they come from. Overall, grades will be slightly higher than in previous years, by around 2 percentage points at A level grade A and above.

We will publish equalities data for England, including analysis by socio-economic status, on results days. Our early analysis shows that students from all backgrounds – including more disadvantaged and black, ethnic minority and Asian communities – have not been disadvantaged by this year’s awarding process.

We know teachers worked extremely hard to deliver this year’s arrangements and the vast majority tried their professional best to submit accurate judgements. We expect the overwhelming majority of the grades awarded this week to be within one grade of the centre assessment grades submitted by teachers.

Overall, students will get the best estimate of the grade they would have achieved if exams had gone ahead. Schools and colleges can appeal if they believe there has been an error or that the moderation process has not produced a reliable result.