GCSEs start with final bit of post-Covid support

Year 11 students like Sam, Bradley and Phoebe (left to right) had only just started secondary school when the first Covid lockdown was announced

GCSE exams are starting in England and Wales, with students in England given some extra help in maths and science in recognition of the disruption they faced during Covid lockdowns.

It is the last year GCSE students will get formulae and equation sheets.

Exams are back to normal in Wales and in Northern Ireland, where GCSE exams have already begun.

This group of Year 11 GCSE students have spent every year of their secondary education in the midst or the wake of the pandemic.

Some exams that don't involve sitting a paper, like art or language speaking assessments, have already been taking place.

BTec exams have started for hundreds of thousands of students in the UK.

Since Covid, exams have been getting back to pre-pandemic arrangements gradually.

Students were given advance notice of topics, among other help, in 2022. This stopped in England last year and in Wales and Northern Ireland this year.

Grading, too, has been getting back to normal after top grades soared in 2020 and 2021, when exams were cancelled and results were based on teachers' assessments.

In England, grades were brought back in line with pre-Covid levels last year.

Exam boards in Wales and Northern Ireland will do the same this year, which means results across the UK should be more similar to 2019, having been slightly higher last year.

In Wales, there will still be some protection in place to make sure grades do not fall "substantially" below 2019 levels.

And most formulae are already provided for students in Wales as standard.

National 5, Higher and Advanced Higher exams have already started in Scotland.

Ruby has already done a practical exam in textiles, making a dress inspired by Taylor Swift's Eras tour

Education Secretary Gillian Keegan announced last year that students in England would get formulae and equation sheets for a final time this year in maths, physics and combined science, with normal exam arrangements in 2025.

"Young people taking GCSEs next year will be the last who experienced two years of national closures during secondary school and it’s right that we recognise that with some additional support," she said.

Discussing pre-exam rituals at Brighouse High School in West Yorkshire, 16-year-old Mihai said he planned to get as much sleep as possible before his first exam, joking that bedtime would be "probably 7pm".

Sam, 16, said he would be cramming until about 11:30pm, while Ruby, 15, was "a bit nervous" because she works part-time at a swimming pool and had a shift the evening before the Religious Studies exam.

"I can't revise the night before like everybody else," she said. "But it's not as bad as if I had science the next day, which I'm more worried about."

Pupils in Year 7 at the start of the pandemic had only been at the school for about six months when most moved to home learning in the first lockdown.

When they returned, there were restrictions on who they could socialise with.

"I actually think that our year group is one of the closest year groups in the school," said Phoebe, 16.

"We were all in sectioned-off bits of the school so we did just see our own year group at break and lunch."

Another pupil, Lily, said she found it hard to remember some of the content they were taught in Years 7 and 8, which saw the most disruption.

"I would definitely not pass anything if it weren’t for the science formulae sheets or the equations," she joked. "There’s so many of them."

Lily, 16, runs a clothing business with her mum and wants to study business after her GCSEs

Harriet, 18, has exams for English language and psychology A-levels coming up, as well as a BTec in performing arts.

Sharing her experience of sitting GCSEs in 2022 with the Year 11s in the room, she pointed out that she didn't have to learn as many poems as they do - prompting a collective groan.

She thought that was "fair", though, adding that she "couldn't imagine doing anything more" during her own GCSEs after the "stress" of Covid.

Last year saw a rise in the number of students needing to take compulsory English and maths resits in England.

Colleges say this, combined with a bulge in the number of teenagers coming through the system, means they are "under immense pressure this exam season".

Catherine Sezen, director of education policy at the Association of Colleges, said colleges were having to find extra invigilators, hire external buildings and pay for transport to and from those buildings.

"This all comes at a significant cost at a time when college finances are stretched," she said.

Teacher strikes over pay last year caused more disruption for this year's GCSE candidates while they were in Year 10.

Additionally some students have had to deal with their school buildings closing on safety grounds - especially those identified as having a dangerous type of concrete called Raac.

Students at some Raac schools have been unable to access design and technology work rooms, laboratories and other specialist spaces for much of the year and are worried about the impact on their results.

Caroline Vile, head teacher at Ellesmere Port Catholic High School in Cheshire, is among those calling for special consideration, telling the BBC her students were not on "a level playing field".

But the Department for Education has said it was "not possible to make changes to exams and assessments for only some groups of students".