Why a look around events spaces across the country today should prompt an urgent review of exams

By Cath Sezen, Director of Education Policy at AoC

Looking for an events space today? The likelihood of finding somewhere to hold an event is limited. From tennis centres in Norfolk to football stadiums in Lancashire, churches, museums and community centres will all be in use today, as they were last week and will be on 4, 6 and 11 June as colleges up and down the country hire out additional spaces to house GCSE maths and English exams.

This is of course in addition to using every classroom and office on the college site. Most colleges close their sites to all other teaching on GCSE days. All staff are involved to register students as they arrive, as invigilators and runners – to get the exam papers to each and every student on time. Which other multi-million-pound organisations enlist their finance directors to run down corridors with exam packs? It might sound a bit like a bit of fun on five mornings in late May, June – the college equivalent of Gladiators - but this is an operation which takes months to organise with considerable personal risk to students’ futures and reputational risk to the college if anything goes awry.

The majority of the 40% of students who do not achieve Grade 4 English and or maths in around 3,400 English secondary schools in year 11 progress to just over 200 colleges where they continue to study these important subjects.  In 2024/25 college data tells us that 53% of all 16 to 18-year-olds in GFE colleges, or over 300,000 students, study English and or maths under government funding requirements, the condition of funding (CoF).   Students who have yet to achieve English and maths have to continue studying or the college doesn’t get funding for their full study programme.

Following the pandemic and the increase in the 16 to 18 age group, which is just beginning to impact on college numbers, year on year, this challenge is getting greater. Around 27% of students at colleges declare a special educational need which means come exam time they rightly expect to have the appropriate support or exam access arrangements in place. At the beginning of the year, this is a challenge as there is no recognised mechanism to ensure that colleges know which of their thousands of students need which support. At exam time, it means printing off papers on the correct coloured paper, with an appropriate font for hundreds of students in just 90 minutes, the amount of time colleges can open the exam packs before the exam starts, hence the finance directors running down corridors. This also explains why chief executives are giving up their offices to accommodate students who need a quieter space than a large exam hall, community centre or museum events space.

Surely, there must be a better way than this stressful and costly system; the end point of a year in which students struggle to get to get to grips with analysis of English language and algebra and colleges struggle to find teachers when schools can and do pay considerably more.

Students often arrive at college with significant gaps in the basics of numeracy, reading and writing skills, grammar and vocabulary. Covering the whole syllabus for maths is a challenge in a year. English language texts can often seem remote.  

The Curriculum and Assessment Review offers the opportunity to think again about content and how young people are assessed on these important skills both pre and post 16. The English language curriculum should provide a stimulating, engaging and motivating grounding for a lifetime of language use, including reading, writing speaking and listening. There should be greater focus on a wide range of text types (and mediums including film, tv programmes) reflecting the diverse and evolving society in which we live. The curriculum should support digital literacy and reflect the impact of social media on communication. The maths curriculum should ensure that all young people are secure in the basics such as number, fractions, percentages, measurement and ratio, multiplicative reasoning and the shift from concrete to symbolic representation. 

We recommend a review of pre- and post 16 GCSE English and maths, to explore the option of having separate core/everyday maths and extended maths and separate literature and core/everyday language exams for English. Students should be assessed when they are ready to achieve (stage not age). A credit-based approach could reward success in small steps, incorporating suitable stepping stone qualifications for those who need additional input pre-Level 2 (GCSE level). Post 16 students who don’t achieve L2 core/everyday English and maths at 16 could continue to study these options with the opportunity to work towards the extended skills where required for progression or should they wish to do so. This should ensure that more students achieve a good foundation in English and maths by 16 and 19 and put an end to the challenges currently faced by students and colleges.

However, the impact of any decisions made through the Curriculum and Assessment Review will take time, time which colleges don’t have over the next few years as student numbers continue to climb. A more urgent review of the logistics of post 16 English and maths and assessment delivery is urgently required to reduce current and growing pressure on staffing and accommodation, especially, but not only, on exam days. A relatively easy option would be to ensure no other exams are timetabled at the same time as English and maths GCSE – this would help relieve some of the pressure for students who find themselves with exam clashes and colleges which run multiple types of qualifications. We also recommend greater flexibility in the English and maths qualifications students can take, enabling the automatic transfer of exam access arrangements from school to college and requiring awarding organisations to print exam papers in line with the reasonable adjustments needed by each candidate at large centres so they are ready in the pack on exam day. Of course, this needs to be underpinned by sustainable post 16 funding to ensure colleges can recruit staff on an even playing field with schools.