Resit arrangements for ‘legacy’ GCSEs, AS and A Levels

08/06/2016

This notice has been updated to include the link to final assessment arrangements for 'less taught' languages.

Following their public consultation, Ofqual has published their consultation outcome regarding resits for ‘legacy’ GCSE, AS and A Levels that will be expiring as part of the reform of general qualifications. We would like to explain what this means for centres and students taking ‘legacy’ OCR GCSE, AS and A Levels.

AS and A Levels 

The consultation confirms students taking ‘legacy’ AS and A Levels in the last scheduled sitting will have the opportunity to resit these qualifications. Resits will: 

• Take place in the June series after the final assessment opportunity 
• Be available in all ‘legacy’ AS and A Level subjects 
• Be available for all AS and A2 units (including coursework units). 

Therefore, in subjects where new qualifications were introduced for first teaching in September 2015 and 2016, the resit opportunities for the OCR ‘legacy’ AS and A Levels will be as follows:

*To confirm which specifications are available from each year, see our Qual Change Planner. 

**The final assessment arrangements for 'less taught' languages are available in a separate update.

The following rules apply to students wishing to take resits in these qualifications: 

• Resits will only be available to those students who have taken the qualification previously (either with OCR or another awarding body) or who had planned to take the qualification (but were not entered due to illness, injury or some other event outside of their control).
  
• Students will be able to carry forward the results from or resit each unit.

GCSEs 

The consultation puts in place requirements for two resit opportunities for GCSEs in English, English Language and Mathematics, as well as one resit opportunity for GCSE Science. 

English and Mathematics 

The resit opportunities for English and Mathematics subjects are shown in the table below.

Please note: there are no resit opportunities available for English Literature (J360).

*Candidates wishing to resit Mathematics A (J562) after November 2016 are able to use the Mathematics B (J567) specification

The following rules apply to students wishing to take resits in these qualifications: 

• If a student resits any of these qualifications, they will need to resit all the exams for that qualification. 
• Students can carry forward the results of the controlled assessments. They can also resit these units. Students who wish to resit a controlled assessment unit must resit the whole unit.
  
• Students can carry forward the results of the speaking and listening in GCSE English and GCSE English Language (including between the two subjects when resitting with the same exam board). They can also resit these units. Students who wish to resit the speaking and listening unit must resit all three activities in this unit.
• The first resit opportunity is limited to students who have taken the qualification previously, who had planned to take the qualification (but were not entered due to illness, injury or some other event outside of their control) or who are aged 16 or above on 31 August 2016. 
• The second resit opportunity is limited to students who have taken the qualification previously, who had planned to take the qualification (but were not entered due to illness, injury or some other event outside of their control) and who are aged 16 or above on 31 August 2016.

Changes have been made to the operational end dates for the above GCSE Maths and English qualifications, to ensure the availability of funding for resit programmes in schools, colleges and other training organisations in the 2016/17 academic year. These changes will not be immediately visible, but the Education Funding Agency and Skills Funding Agency are planning to send an update to providers.

Science 

The final assessment opportunity for most GCSE science qualifications is June 2017. The only exception is GCSE Environmental and Land-based Science, where the final assessment opportunity is June 2018. 

OCR will provide a resit opportunity for the GCSE Science and GCSE Additional Science qualifications (for both the ‘A’ and ‘B’ suites) in November 2017. The following rules apply to students wishing to take resits in these qualifications: 

• If a student resits any of these qualifications, they will need to resit all the exams for that qualification. 
• Students will be able to carry forward their controlled assessment results. They can also resit these units.
  
• The resit opportunity is limited to students who have taken any GCSE Science qualification previously, who had planned to take a GCSE Science qualification (but were not entered due to illness, injury or some other event outside of their control), or who are aged 16 or above on 31 August 2017.

Other GCSE subjects 

OCR will not be offering resit opportunities in any other GCSE subjects. 

Further information 

You can check final assessment opportunities for ‘legacy’ GCSEs, AS and A Levels using our new Qual Change Planner. This has been designed to support schools and colleges in changing from the qualification currently being delivered to one of our new reformed qualifications. You just need to enter a subject or entry code for a current qualification into the box on the Qual Change Planner page and select from the results.

For full details of Ofqual's rules, see the following links:

• Saving and transitional provisions for legacy AS and A levels 
• Saving and transitional provisions for GCSEs (graded A* to G)