Official Statistics

Access arrangements for GCSE, AS and A Level: 2017 to 2018 academic year

Access arrangements allow skills and knowledge to be demonstrated by candidates with disabilities, temporary illnesses or special educational needs.

• From: Ofqual
• Published: 22 November 2018
• Last updated: 24 September 2019 — See all updates

Applies to England

Documents

Access Arrangements for GCSE, AS and A level: 2017 to 2018 academic year

Ref: Ofqual/18/6443/1

PDF, 666 KB, 6 pages

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Background information: Access Arrangements for GCSE, AS and A level, 2017 to 2018 academic year

Ref: Ofqual/18/6443/3

PDF, 603 KB, 8 pages

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Data tables: Access Arrangements for GCSE, AS and A level, 2017 to 2018 academic year

Ref: Ofqual/18/6443/2

MS Excel Spreadsheet, 26.1 KB

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Pre-release access list: Access Arrangements for GCSE, AS and A level, 2017 to 2018 academic year

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Details

Notes

Please note that the figure of total number of modified papers given in the release is not complete, as one of the exam boards inadvertently did not report numbers of one type of modified paper (non-interactive electronic question papers). Therefore the current figure given on page 4 in the report, table 3, and the figures and charts on page 5 may be affected.

Since the publication of the release the exam board informed us of a change in their procedure of providing modified papers to centres. Under the new procedure the centres are able to download PDFs from the exam board’s secure area and print additional copies. The exam board did not collect the number of additional copies made and therefore reported a nil return for the number of modified papers. We are working with the exam board to resolve this.

Main trends

The main trends in access arrangements for GCSE, AS and A Level for 2017 to 2018 academic year in England were:

1. There were 391,130 approved access arrangements, down 0.5% on 2016/17.
2. 5,425 centres (91% of all centres) had approved access arrangements for one or more of their students this year, a similar percentage to last year.
3. 25% extra time arrangements made up 60% of all approved arrangements in 2017/18, compared to 57% in 2016/17.
4. There were 49,985 modified papers this year, up 4% on 2017.

User feedback

We are keen to hear your views on our publications. Please send any comments on this statistical release and how to improve it to meet your needs to [email protected].

Published 22 November 2018
Last updated 24 September 2019 + show all updates

1. 24 September 2019

   Added note to the top of the release outlining an issue with incomplete data received from one exam board.

2. 11 January 2019

   A minor change made to the number of candidates taking exams as well as the percentage of centres with approved access arrangements (page 1 and 3 of the report and data table 2). This was done to take into account the most relevant data source for these figures, which was consistent with the statistics published in previous years.

3. 22 November 2018

   First published.