This year’s GCSEs and A-level students are now expected to receive their results in early August, Tes understands.

Under the Ofqual and the Department for Education proposals for grading in 2021, the plan had been to release them to students significantly earlier to allow more time for appeals.

They said that teachers would submit students’ grades to the exam boards by mid-June, with students receiving their grades in early July.

There was a suggestion that universities could then receive “formal” results for admissions after appeals had taken place.

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However, sources close to the discussions on final plans - to be revealed later this week - have told Tes that results are now likely to be to students issued in early August.

“One of the proposals in the consultation was that teachers or exam boards would declare results in perhaps early July and then students would be able to appeal to their school at that point. That’s not going to happen,” one source told Tes.

“They are now talking about results coming out in the earlier part of August...results are not coming out in July as people had thought they would. And the appeals system doesn’t start until results have been received in August,” they added.

And another source close to the discussions has confirmed that the current thinking is for results to be released in early August, a month after the consultation proposed. 

An Ofqual spokesperson said: “We will say more about the outcome of our recent joint consultation and how we intend to proceed when we set out the results of our consultation [this] week.”

The DfE has been contacted for comment.