Delays to GCSE and A-level exams accreditation could spell 'disaster', teaching bodies warn

One in five GCSE and A-level specifications are still awaiting sign-off from exams regulators, furthering teachers' concerns that time is running out for preparations

Thousands of students will begin preparations for the new GCSE and A-level courses in September (Photofusion/REX/Shutterstock)

Delays to exam specifications for next year's GCSE and A-level courses could result in “disasterous” consequences similar to the “chaos” seen over this year's primary school examinations, teaching groups have warned.

Despite promises that all new exam specifications would be signed off a year in advance, Government figures disclose that one in five GCSEs and A-level specifications are still awaiting sign-off by the exams regulating body.

Updated figures from Ofqual show that a quarter of GCSE subjects are yet to have all their submitted specifications accredited and only 7 in 11 AS and A-level subjects are complete. The revelation comes as schools prepare for dramatic changes to GCSE and A-level curriculum and grading systems to begin this year.

Key language qualifications including French, German and Spanish are yet to be approved and science qualifications have only recently been addressed, teaching unions say, leaving schools very little time to prepare for the new curriculum before summer.

This week it was revealed by the Times Education Supplement that OCR, one of the three main school exam boards, has made the decision to drop its modern foreign language [MFL] courses after waiting too long for Ofqual accreditation.

The board say it had taken the decision to pull out of MFL “reluctantly” in order to give teachers time “to make a considered choice about new qualifications for this September”.

The slow rate of approvals for the new secondary school exams has led to growing anxiety among teaching bodies who have criticised the Government for its “rushed” reforms.

Deputy General Secretary for the National Union of Teachers (NUT), Kevin Courtney said: “The government is in danger of recreating in secondary schools the disastrous experience of this year’s primary assessment. A rushed process of implementation gives rise to problems which schools are left to deal with, while the Department For Education (DfE) minimises the difficulties they face.”

The union warned that by imposing the new curriculum “based on a narrow range of academic subjects”, students were likely to be left “dissatisfied and demotivated”, leading to poorer results in the process.

“Teaching unions, the creative sector, and the CBI have all pointed to the emerging problems of the DfE’s new curriculum. In the next school year these problems, unfortunately, are likely to become more acute," said Mr Courtney.

Last month, a test scheduled for six and seven-year-olds was scrapped after the education department’s testing agency mistakenly included the actual test paper within a bundle of practice material published three months earlier for preparation purposes.

The NUT described this year's SATs examinations as “total chaos”, attributed to a rapid implementation of the new school curriculum.

If the delays to secondary school examination specifications continue, schools that may want to start teaching GCSEs at the end of Year 9 will be unable to do so, teachers warned.

The slow process has also meant that teachers are unable to make crucial decisions in terms of lesson planning and purchasing materials.

Union leaders have said that the reform programme was a “major cause of stress for teachers”, particular in light of a series of incidences witnessed over primary school exams this month.

However, Nick Gibb, the schools minister, said that content for core subjects has been published as early as April 2014.

Lucy Powell, Labour's shadow education secretary, said: “Many parents and businesses will be unaware of the huge shake-up to qualifications.

”We have been warning for months that the Government is way behind in its timetable for exam specifications, yet this has fallen on deaf ears.“

A DfE spokesman said: “It is not true to suggest schools cannot prepare for teaching next year – in fact, agreed specifications are available for all subjects, so there is no barrier to schools preparing for September."

“We have reformed GCSEs and A-levels so they now represent a new gold standard, and it is right that the highest standards are applied to developing and accrediting these new qualifications."

“Content for core subjects including GCSE science, modern foreign languages, history and geography were published as long ago as April 2014. The content for all subjects was published by February 2015 to help schools prepare for their introduction.”