Top exam grades will fall sharply next summer and are likely to return to pre-pandemic levels the year after, leaving no safety net for teenagers just starting GCSEs and A-levels.
Ministers will announce today that pupils taking GCSE exams in England next year will be given notice of topics, crib sheets and more lenient grading to make up for the Covid-19 disruption.
Gavin Williamson, when he was education secretary, said that there would be a “glide path” back to normality, but the Department for Education and Ofqual, the exams regulator, announced that there would be only one year of softer grade boundaries.
This summer a record 45 per cent of A-levels were graded A* or A, with 19 per cent at A* after results were
