Highlights from a special episode of The Exam Man podcast released on Thursday 1st May 2025
In this special episode recorded just before the start of the 2025 exam season we spoke to Amanda Swann, who is the Executive Director of General Qualifications at Ofqual. We talked to her about what Ofqual is and what it does, and some of the big issues swirling around exams. She also gave us some helpful tips, timely reminders and uplifting messages of appreciation for all those running exams in schools.
Could you start by telling us a little bit about how you've ended up working in exams, and what is your current role and work?
Yes, and thank you very much, John and Sophie, for having me today on your podcast. It's great to talk to anyone associated with education, and also take the chance to thank your listeners for all their dedication and the hard work they've put in already to make sure students are well prepared for the exam series. The exam series is definitely not for the faint-hearted, so thank you for all your work.
I work for Ofqual at the minute, that's the qualifications regulator for England, as the Executive Director for general qualifications. So exams are my bread and butter business as well. On a day-to-day basis, I work to set the strategic direction for the reform and regulation of qualifications, and that involves a lot of work with stakeholders in the education sector, which I really enjoy. I've been with Ofqual for about 18 months, and before that, I worked for nearly 20 years for the Council for Curriculum, Examinations and Assessment in Northern Ireland. And before that, I trained as a teacher as well. So my whole career has really been in education.
A very long stint in exams, so you definitely know your stuff! You've just given us a little hint of what Ofqual does. Could you give us, in a couple of minutes, an overview of the work that you do at Ofqual for anyone who might not know and who is listening to this?
Ofqual is a really interesting organisation. It's the regulator of standards and confidence in qualifications in England. The sorts of qualifications we cover at Ofqual are GCSEs, AS levels and A level, vocational and technical qualifications, and apprenticeship end point assessments. That's not an exhaustive list, that's just a sample. Basically, we make sure that regulated qualifications reflect what a student knows, understands and can do. And also that the qualifications are trusted and hold their value over time to benefit students, the economy and the wider society. A lot of people don't actually realise that we're independent of government, and we report directly to Parliament. I know you've probably got a lot of international listeners today as well. So it's important to note that not all qualifications, especially those offered internationally, are actually regulated by Ofqual. It's up to awarding organisations to decide if they want to offerOfqual-regulated qualifications, and if they do, then they have to meet our rigorous rules.
How do you work with the Department for Education at Ofqual?
The DfE and Ofqual have quite distinct roles. The Department for Education decides the national policy and priorities for the education system. It's DfE's role to set the national curriculum, and that includes the content of GCSEs and A levels. Ofqual are responsible for maintaining standards. We make sure that regulated qualifications in England are valid, reliable and fair for students. The Department of Education will set the subject content for a particular GCSE, and then Ofqual will come in behind them, and they'll set the requirement for how the subject content will be assessed. The exam boards will then design and build that GCSE specification based on the requirements, and then Ofqual will make sure that all requirements are met before the qualification becomes a regulated qualification. The DfE are also the decision maker about which qualifications are used for schools and college accountability, and also which qualifications are eligible for funding for schools and colleges too.
What role, then, does Ofqual play in the assessment of those qualifications, in terms of marking and grading of students?
Ofqual has many rules that awarding organisations have to meet if they're offering an accredited qualification. If we take marking first, because that happens first, and is a very important part of the process, in most cases exam scripts are split up into individual questions. And then an examiner will mark different students' responses to the same question, using a mark scheme to maintain consistency. Ofqual requires that exam boards train their markers before they start to mark live student work. Exam boards have quality assurance processes in place to check the accuracy and consistency of examiners' work as they work through their allocations. That's also a requirement from Ofqual. It's important to note and just to reassure students and teachers and educators in the system that exam scripts are marked completely anonymously. The marker will never know who the student is or what school or college they attend. Moving on to grading which comes after the marking process, students' grades are wholly based on the marks that they got in their qualification. It will be the marks they got in their non-exam assessment, their exams, you know, everything added together. And grading is the process that makes sure that the standard of work at each grade boundary is comparable to the previous year, to make sure that it's no harder or easier to get a particular grade from one year to the next. That's one of the reasons Ofqual exists.
Grade boundaries may vary year on year, reflecting changes and how difficult or easy a paper is. But the actual standard of work to get, say for example, a grade seven in GCSE Geography will be comparable to the year before. To do that exam boards will use a range of evidence to determine grade boundaries. And the first thing they'll do is analyse data about the students taking the qualification. They'll compare that to those that have taken it in previous years. The data is used to identify potential grade boundaries, which reflect whether students find the exam slightly harder or easier than in previous years. And then senior examiners will look at samples of work from students who have achieved marks on or around the potential grade boundary, and compare that with work from students from the previous year at the same grade boundary.
So much goes into it, doesn't it?
There's a lot, and it's only after looking at all of that evidence together that senior examiners will recommend the final grade boundary. It is a very rigorous process. And it usually happens in July after the timetable is finished. But it always happens after students have taken the exam and all the responses have been marked. So it's at the tail end of the process.
That feels like it's quite a lot to do in a very short amount of time as well with very high stakes at the same time.
It is. There's not too many people on holiday.
Is it the case that the exam boards will recommend where the grade boundaries are set and then you'll sign it off as Ofqual? Is that how it works? Are you working together to arrive at those grade boundaries? What's the process?
No. Exam boards are responsible for setting the grade boundaries for their own qualifications, but they have to do it within the rules that Ofqual set. We do meet regularly with the exam boards throughout that period, just to make sure that all of the rules are being followed.
Could you talk to us a bit about the practical delivery of examinations, in particular in relation to malpractice and maladministration? We've touched on it before but it would be really good to hear from you about what it means.
It's a big, important area. So malpractice, including maladministration, basically means any act which is a breach of the regulations that apply to an exam or assessment being taken. It doesn't only involve students, it can involve centre staff as well. Malpractice is a hard one because it doesn't necessarily involve an intention to cheat, especially with centre staff. So for example, it can be as simple as taking the wrong pack of papers out and opening them on the wrong day and at worst handing them out. So that's why the “second pair of eyes” check that is required is an essential part of the process and would prevent this type of error.
Can I just say, Amanda, I've just started sweating? All the colour drained out my face for a second!
It's such a responsibility, the Exams Officer role and I totally get that. And the vast majority of allegations involving unintentional breaches of the regulations are usually caused by a lack of knowledge of the requirements because schools are very busy places and there's a lot of documentation. But even when malpractice is unintentional the consequences are significant. So I would make a plea to anyone listening, to take the time and make the time to read the instructions for conducting examinations well in advance of the examination series, because things do change year on year. Examination officers have so much to remember in a normal year, in a normal day. It's so easy to forget things from one year to the next. Please, please do read those instructions before the exam series starts again.
Would you say that the most common type of malpractice or maladministration that you see is those sort of small human errors in administration?
The biggest one that we see in relation to students still relates to them bringing phones and other digital devices into the exam hall. Last summer, more than four in 10 of the cases involving students were about them taking mobile phones or other electronic devices into the exam hall. That's been a trend for plenty of years, and it's a sad one too because the stakes are so high. Whether or not they mean to cheat, students who take their mobile phones or smart watches or whatever into the exam hall are committing malpractice. And we've all worked with teenagers. We have them at home as well. It's so difficult to separate them from their phones. I know with my own son, he's well beyond exams now, but I used to actually physically take his phone off him on his GCSE years, so that he wasn't even bringing it into school. Exams Officers do tell us that most students who bring in their phones don't intend to cheat. Please do take the chance to reinforce the arrangements that are in place for students to leave their phones outside the exam hall, and also reinforce the consequences for not following the rules for mobile phones.
Because as you say, it's just so high stakes for a mistake like that.
It is.
I would definitely say in my experience that well over 50 percent of the time, probably getting on for two-thirds, maybe three-quarters of the time, if we find a student has a phone, even if it’s in a mock exam, it will be accidental. It won't be because they're deliberately trying to get it in there to cheat or anything like that. It will just be that it’s slipped their mind or something like that. It's usually an innocent mistake
It's a good way to approach it, condition them with their mocks every time they do an exam, run it like the JCQ ICE booklet tells, so they get used to it, and they get used to being parted from it, which is half the battle.
Could you tell us some of the misconceptions there might be about what Ofqual does, or some of the things that you do that people might not be fully aware of?
We do a lot. We set the rules that exam boards must operate to, but we also monitor exam boards against those rules to make sure that they are following them. We're also there as a point of contact, so that when people have exhausted all routes with their exam boards and they feel that they haven't got to where they need to, then Ofqual is always there as a backup to actually consider and look at cases.
Ofqual are there to take things forward and investigate things if it hasn't been dealt with appropriately with the exam board. I have a couple of things for vocational qualifications that I thought, if I'm on the podcast, it would be great to say and reinforce again. The first thing is about the term time checkpoint report. This is basically to make sure that all students using VTQs for progression can receive the results at the same time as their peers taking GCSEs and A levels. To ensure that happens, awarding organisations operate a term time checkpoint for skills and that usually happens around this time of year. There's probably people offering qualifications with lots of different VTQ organisations. So if you Google Ofqual VTQ Information Hub, you'll get everybody's key dates and you can just search and filter. It's really important that schools meet this deadline for exam boards, so that if there are any issues that come up that need to be resolved before a grade can be issued, then there's actually time to do that. Also as part of that process, there is the senior designated contact that's a requirement by exam boards for schools and colleges. That's just there in case of emergencies, so that if there is a query about a candidate, the boards can actually speak to someone to get that resolved for results day so that nobody is waiting on results and then they don't come.
The other thing is the terminal rule. So the terminal rule is for Key Stage 4 Tech Awards and it's been in place from 2022. It covers qualifications that sit alongside GCSEs, including BTECs, VCERTs and Cambridge Nationals. The rule is that if you are taking the qualification, you must take your exam at the end of the qualification after completing all the coursework. If it's not done in that order, then they can't complete their qualification. So I'm just taking another opportunity to reinforce that rule there, so that if anybody realises that they haven't, that they can contact the exam board to see what the best thing to do is.
That's a change from a situation where an exam could be done in, say, January or something like that, and then coursework submitted. So now it must be done in the final submitting season.
Yes.
We do a Cambridge National one. That changed for us, obviously, as we used to do the exam in January, and now we're doing it in summer. It's funny you're talking about deadlines as well, because of the number of deadlines coming up. Do you have any advice, Amanda, for everyone listening to the podcast who works in exams, ahead of the imminent summer season starting?
I think the thing at the top of my list is just make sure you understand all the rules and procedures in advance and follow them. Don't leave it to 10 minutes before an exam starts to start reading the rules.
As you said, check for the changes as well.
Absolutely.
I think, from my experience, you can get a bit complacent and think, well, you've done it for quite a few years and know what the rules are, but I do find it really helps to go back over stuff because you do forget things, don't you? And also, when you have your JCQ inspection in my experience you do get asked questions about the rules and regulations. So it's important to gen up on it, even if you've been doing it for a few years.
And also the Exams Officer carries out such a critical role in the whole system, so if you are an Exams Officer, just make sure that you have contingency arrangements in place for someone to step in should you get ill or you need to step away. Because no matter what happens, life happens. There's always illness, there are always bereavements. It would be better to have that contingency well set up so that if something does happen, you can just deal with what you need to deal with at home, and school will run as normal.
Such, such good advice. We're grinning because of the number of conversations we've had around this. My line manager always talks about me getting hit by a bus, which is not the nicest way to think about it. I could just be ill.
Or you could just move into the school so you don't actually have to go anywhere! And the final thing would probably be the mobile phones, because there's still just so many students having quite severe consequences of doing it by accident. And if that number significantly reduced next year, I would be delighted.
That's such an important message. There does seem to have been a shift in recent years around mobile phones in schools. Hopefully that will help a little bit in terms of exams, as mobile phones should be, at the very least, not out and about during the school day, which is hopefully going to help with running exams in the future.
Having worked in the sector a long time, I know how hard Exams Officers and centre staff work. And it's not just the exam series, it's all the time. So I'd like to thank you and your listeners for their dedication and effort. And I wish you all the best for the series. I do hope that you have a well-deserved summer break when you get there. And it seems like months away still, but it's coming – you’re on the home straight.
That's really nice to hear, Amanda. I'm sure everyone will really appreciate that.
Lovely to talk to you.
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