General Teaching Council Northern Ireland

Boards agree to move GCSE results day to avoid chaos

Irish News

Exam boards have agreed to move forward GCSE results day in 2010 to avoid a repeat of problems caused by this year’s late release.

A delay in the publication of this month’s exam results is threatening to plunge schools into chaos ahead of the new term, as reported in The Irish News yesterday.

Pupils will only learn all of their GCSE grades days before they are due to return to classes after the summer holidays.

This leaves little time to make alternative arrangements if students fail to get the grades required to progress to A-level study.

Principals criticised the late publication as bad planning with one adding that it will create an “administrative nightmare” for his school.

Many pupils sit papers set by boards in England and Wales but those results will only be known on Thursday August 27, just before a bank holiday weekend. Schools re-open after summer on Tuesday September 1.

The north’s exams board – the CCEA – spotted the problem and requested boards elsewhere agree a change in publication date. This, however, was refused.

It has managed to secure agreement from all boards to move the date forward next year.

A CCEA spokeswoman said that the cycle of dates for GCSE results indicated a potential release date of August 26, 2010 – only three full days before the start of the new academic year.

“However, agreement has been secured from all awarding bodies that the 2010 GCSE results will be made available to candidates two days earlier on Tuesday 24 August,” she said.