Catch up on the latest from OCR
After yet another challenging year, we hope you're able to enjoy a well-deserved rest over the festive period. Your hard work and resilience throughout 2021 have ensured students continued to receive a great education and got the results they needed in the summer to move on to the next phase of their lives.?
Well done to all students who received their AS, A Level and Core Maths results yesterday. If any of your students have any queries about their results, we've got lots of support on our results?webpage.
The November 2021 exam series?results statistics?are now available.
In this year's final roundup:
Our offices will be closed from midday on Friday 24 December until 8am on Tuesday 4 January. From everyone here at OCR, we wish you a safe, relaxing festive period. We look forward to supporting you and your students in 2022!
Inspire your students with Cambridge Nationals
We're delighted to announce that all ten of our redeveloped Level 1 / Level 2 Cambridge Nationals qualifications have been approved for inclusion on the?key stage 4 performance tables in England for 2024. Our Cambridge Nationals are Technical Award qualifications for 14-16 year olds for first teaching September 2022.
Practical, accessible, fun to teach and exciting to learn, they'll inspire your students to develop real-world skills to prepare them for their future.
Next steps
We're here to support you every step of the way to help you plan your delivery. Check out our wide range of resources, approved specifications, curriculum planners, e-learning module, free online showcase events and much more at our?Cambridge Nationals Hub.
If you’ve already made your decision to teach a redeveloped Cambridge National, we’re really looking forward to working with you. To help us support you, please let us know by completing a?Teach with OCR?form.
January 2022 exams
We’re looking forward to supporting you and your students taking Cambridge Nationals and Cambridge Technicals exams in January 2022.?The DfE and the Education Secretary?have communicated to schools and colleges about exams and formal assessments going ahead, with the message that students should be given every opportunity to demonstrate what they have learnt.?
Do check out our?FAQs?which include?guidance on special consideration?for students who may be unable to sit their exams in January.
Contingency planning
All schools and colleges are required to have?contingency plans?in place as standard. The Department for Education and Ofqual's joint?contingency plan?is designed to ensure a consistent and effective response to any major disruption to the examination system in England, Wales and Northern Ireland.
The JCQ has also published?guidance?on preparing contingency plans and more?FAQs?to help you prepare for a scenario in which summer 2022 examinations do not go ahead as planned.
Autumn 2020 papers
In line with other Joint Council for Qualifications (JCQ) boards, our autumn 2020 GCSE, AS and A level exam papers and mark schemes will be available on our public website from 18 January 2022. This is a joint decision to better support all students preparing for mocks and exams next year.
This includes supporting private candidates such as home educated students and those re-taking qualifications after leaving school or college. Exam boards have worked together to ensure consistency for teachers and students. After giving teachers at least 12 months’ access to the autumn 2020 papers, our papers and mark schemes will be available on 18 January by clicking on the ‘assessment’ tab on each qualification page or via?our past paper finder?as usual.
Looking for material that your students are not familiar with to build mocks?
We provide practice papers for many subjects which are available on Interchange. Our question-building platform?ExamBuilder?can help you quickly build bespoke mocks using questions from a wide range of past paper materials. You can tailor questions or parts of questions to build confidence in specific topics and to suit your students’ needs. And it's free of charge.
Catch up on latest Ofqual reports
Our regulator Ofqual published a flurry of?reports?on Thursday 16 December. In case you missed them, these included the summer 2021 GCSE, AS and A Level report and one on the delivery and award of qualifications of vocational and technical qualifications in 2021. Alongside these were annual statistics about malpractice and entries.
Thank you, and enjoy our festive activities
As we approach the end of a long and challenging term, our Chief Executive, Jill Duffy, would like to say a huge?thank you?to everyone in schools and colleges.
We look forward to working with you all in 2022!
?? Finally, if you missed our nature and sustainability quiz, classic festive quiz and recipes, music playlist and recommended reads for 2022, you can find them all on our Christmas page below. ??