The number of incidents that risked having an impact on assessment delivery increased in the 2024 exam series, the regulator has revealed.
There were 35 incidents in this year’s GCSE, AS and A levels where aspects of the delivery of an assessment “were or could have been compromised”, Ofqual said.
This compares to 27 incidents in 2023, according to the regulator’s annual delivery report, published today.
Ofqual attributed the rise to an increase in issues relating to IT failures.
For the overall number of incident reports, 2024 had fewer reports than the previous year (253 compared with 295).
This was largely due to the 2023 exam series having more security breaches, Ofqual said.
Activity undertaken to “increase security control” has helped to reduce the number this year, the regulator continued.
However, there were more incidents of incorrect results, delivery failures and assessment material errors reported in this exam series.
Here are five other things we learnt from Ofqual’s annual delivery report:
1. Malpractice reports down
There were fewer reports of allegations or suspicions of serious malpractice in GCSE, AS and A levels this year (six reports compared with 15 in 2023).
Three of these reports, made by awarding organisations (AO), concerned centre staff and an additional three concerned students.
One of the three cases involving centre staff resulted in action being taken against the member of staff, while two cases are still being investigated. Of the three cases involving students, two received a disqualification; in one case no malpractice was proven.
There were 51 malpractice allegations made by other individuals to Ofqual. This number has also decreased from 2023 (when there were 96).
2. Assessment material errors on the rise
There was an increase in the number of assessment material errors identified this summer compared with summer 2023 (100 and 87 respectively).
Ofqual also received 65 error reports in the content of question papers in summer 2024. Of these, 12 could have prevented students from being able to answer the question, while 32 were deemed minor by Ofqual and had no impact on their ability to respond.
AQA had the most question errors of all exam boards (22), followed by OCR (19), Pearson (15) and WJEC (9). AQA is the largest exam board in the country and sets more than half of all GCSE and A-level papers in the UK.
There were more lost scripts in 2024, compared with 2023 (1,744 and 1,197 respectively). The most common reason was scripts being lost in transit.
3. Social media leaks under control
There was only one leak of exam material in 2024, compared with 38 in 2023.
Ofqual contacted individual AOs on 28 occasions to share information relating to social media accounts claiming to have question papers for sale. All were confirmed as fake.
This may reflect the actions taken by AOs to “improve detection and increase awareness of the consequences of engaging in such activity”, Ofqual said.
4. More alternative assessments carried out
In a small number of cases, where students cannot partake in assessments because of their disability, AOs can consider alternative assessment evidence if no other adjustment could be made.
There was a total of 790 GCSE grades awarded to 165 students through the use of alternative assessment evidence as a “reasonable adjustment”. This is a rise from 2023, where a total of 473 grades were awarded to 107 students through alternative assessment approaches.
The findings come after nearly a third of students asked for 25 per cent extra time to complete exams this year.
5. Why there was no adjustment for maths
In maths, there was a statistically significant upward change at GCSE grade 7, Ofqual said.
The regulator did not require exam boards to make an adjustment this summer as the change was only significant to 0.05.
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