Advance warning over new A-levels

Previous GCSE results will inform the A-level grades

Exams regulators have given a warning of potential problems with the new AS and A-level exams this year and next.

The changes involve having four instead of six course units, tougher questions in exams and an A* for top candidates.

Last time A-levels were changed, in 2002, papers in a dozen subjects had to be reviewed and 2,000 students eventually received higher grades.

New regulator Ofqual says the latest changes "bring unique challenges" but exam boards aim to maintain standards.

The first awards in the revised AS qualifications - the first half of A-levels - will be made this summer, with the A2s - the second half, making up the full qualification - in 2010.

Ofqual says the changes are designed to ensure that all students have the opportunity to demonstrate their skills and understanding and that the most able are further encouraged to work for the best possible grades.

The A* will go to those getting marks of more than 90% in their A2 exams.

Consistency

Ofqual is England's watchdog but because A-levels are taken also in Wales and Northern Ireland it has been working with equivalent organisations there.

Both new qualifications and changes in existing qualifications bring unique challenges for candidates and their teachers Ofqual letter

"Both new qualifications and changes in existing qualifications bring unique challenges for candidates and their teachers for whom the specifications and testing format are unfamiliar," Ofqual chair Kathleen Tattersall says in an open letter to schools and colleges.

"Most importantly awarding bodies are charged with the responsibility of setting appropriate grade boundaries which recognise the achievements of candidates in a manner consistent with the previous year's entrants and carry forward the standard of the previous specifications.

"It is also important that the grades across awarding bodies are of a consistent standard so that, regardless of the awarding body for whose specifications a student has been entered, the grade achieved is that which would have been achieved on another awarding body's specification."

Evidence

Ofqual and the exam boards are committed to ensuring that the standards of the grades awarded are maintained from last year's old-style exams - and are aligned between the different boards, which set different exams.

Ms Tattersall adds that the marks needed to achieve the various exam grades will sometimes be different - especially in coursework.

"An agreed range of technical and statistical evidence, including students' prior attainment in GCSEs, will inform the judgements of awarders about the worth of students' scripts," the letter says.

A spokesman for Ofqual said this meant the GCSE results for the whole year group of students, not their individual attainment - and they would be only a factor, with examiners' judgements remaining paramount.

"The marking of this year's revised papers may indicate that students have performed differently from their peers, who took last year's examinations featuring more familiar questions, in spite of evidence that the performance and attainment of both groups of students were similar."

Ms Tattersall said all those involved were agreed that this approach would safeguard candidates' best interests and assure standards consistent with those of previous years.

But the letter is written against an immediate backdrop of problems with science GCSEs and problems in the marking of national curriculum tests last year, as well as the memory of the big problems in 2002.

The fact that it has been written 18 months ahead of the final results in the new A-levels, in 2010, shows the level of awareness of the potential for problems.

However, it is said to have been drafted before the first of this year's AS-level results were issued last week - from units taken in January. It apparently does not signify that there were any noticeable problems with those.

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