Number of special consideration requests in exams falls

The amount of special consideration request made for GCSE and A-level exams in England fell by four per cent this year.

There were 590,855 special consideration requests made this year, down from 615,370 in 2018. The proportion of requests approved remained similar to last year (92 per cent, down from 93 per cent).

Ofqual said: “The overall number of entries [in all exams] declined compared to 2018, falling by approximately 2 per cent, which may partly explain the small decrease in the number of special consideration requests.”

The fall was also driven by a decrease in the number of mark adjustment requests. These involve an adjustment of up to 5 per cent to the maximum mark of a question paper. The number of such requests fell from 595,200 in 2018 to 567,485 this year. The approval rate for mark adjustment requests fell very slightly from 97 per cent to 96.1 per cent.

The proportion of candidates receiving a 5 per cent adjustment fell from 9 per cent last year to 6 per cent this year, while there was an increase in the combined proportion of 3 per cent and 4 per cent adjustments.