This matter is for the statutory regulator of qualifications (the Office of Qualifications and Examinations Regulation—Ofqual). Glenys Stacey, the Chief Regulator for England has written to the noble Lord and a copy of her reply has been placed in the House Libraries.

Letter from Glenys Stacey, Chief Regulator, Ofqual, to Lord Quirk, dated 9 October 2012.

As you will be aware, I have been asked by the Department for Education to respond to you directly about the question you asked regarding comparable outcomes and this year's GCSE English results following publication of our interim report.

In our report published on 31 August 2012, we concluded that the grade boundaries in GCSE English qualifications had been set properly. In recommending grade boundaries for these qualifications, senior examiners used the statistical evidence available to them alongside evidence of candidate work, as is required of them.

We are continuing to investigate this issue and we plan to publish our final report towards the end of this month. I will make sure that you are sent a copy.

If you would like more information, please do not hesitate to contact me.

Ofqual is responsible for ensuring that qualifications and assessments are of a high quality and an appropriate standard. It must also safeguard and maintain examination standards over time. Glenys Stacey, Ofqual's Chief Regulator, has written to the hon. Member and a copy of her reply has been placed in the House Libraries.

Letter from Glenys Stacey, dated 11 June 2012:

I am writing in response to your parliamentary question about what assessment the Secretary of State has made of recent trends in the standard of examinations in schools. We have been asked to respond on his behalf.

As part of our work to maintain standards, we carry out regular reviews to look at the standards of qualifications in different years. We aim to judge whether standards have been maintained over time and to compare standards between awarding organisations.

We use the findings from these reviews to inform our wider work, particularly when we are developing regulations for future qualifications.

Standards reviews look at different specifications within a qualification, the question papers and any other assessments, as well as student work, and we collate and analyse the views of a number of subject specialists. We focus on the relative demand of the qualifications. We judge demand in terms of the following:

specification factors, including assessment objectives, content and structure;

assessment factors, including what content is assessed and how, the weighting of each component and how the assessments are marked; and

student performance factors, including how students at particular grades responded to the assessments.

We collect materials on a regular basis from the five awarding organisations (AQA, CCEA, Edexcel, OCR and WJEC) where they offer the qualifications being reviewed. Not all awarding organisations offer all subjects. Where an awarding organisation offers more than one specification in a subject, we collect materials for the largest entry specification. The materials we look at include the specification, question papers and mark schemes, reports of examiners, student work and statistical evidence. We use subject experts to carry out the reviews. These subject experts are independent but we also include representatives from the awarding organisations and subject associations/learned societies.

We have recently completed work on seven standards reviews. We compared the standards of qualifications across years in the following subjects. In some cases the two qualifications were based on the same specification; in other cases there was a specification change in the meantime.

1. GCSE biology 2003 and 2008

2. GCSE chemistry 2003 and 2008

3. GCSE mathematics 2004 and 2008

4. A level biology 2003 and 2008

5. A level chemistry 2003 and 2008

6. A level critical thinking 2010

7. A level geography 2001 and 2010

In the GCSEs we reviewed (biology, chemistry and mathematics) we found that changes to the structure of the assessments, rather than changes to the content, reduced the demand of some qualifications. These qualifications have since been replaced with revised specifications. In the case of the sciences, where the new specifications have been used since September 2011, these new qualifications were designed to be more demanding.

In the A level subjects we reviewed, in general we found that changes to the way the content was assessed had an impact on demand, in many cases reducing it. In two of the reviews (biology and chemistry) the specifications were the same for both years. We found that the demand in 2008 was lower than in 2003, usually because the structure of the assessments had changed. Often there were more short answer, structured questions. As a result, students did not have as many opportunities to show their higher order skills in 2008. These specifications have since been replaced.

In geography there were changes to the specifications between 2001 and 2010. Changes to the content meant that some specifications had less scientific content in 2010. We found that the removal of coursework in 2010 reduced the overall demand of the qualification and may have meant students were less well prepared for higher education.

We also reviewed critical thinking qualifications for a single year (2010). The qualifications are offered by only two awarding organisations. We found some variation in the content of the two specifications but overall we found that the qualifications were comparable.

GCSEs will be revised following the National Curriculum Review in England and A levels will also be revised in the near future. We will use the findings from these reviews to inform the development of regulations for those new qualifications.

If you would like further information on this part of our work, please do get in touch with our Director of Standards, Dennis Opposs on 02476 716647 or at:

dennis.opposs@ofqual.gov.uk