Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what measures he is putting in place to support pupils with long covid who are taking exams in 2021-22.

Exams are the best and fairest way of judging students’ performance. Exams give students a fair chance to show their knowledge and understanding of a subject. It is the government’s firm intention that exams and assessments should go ahead this year. The department recognises the disruption many students have experienced and has worked with Ofqual, exam boards, and representatives of the sector to review existing arrangements for exams. This is to ensure they appropriately reflect scenarios arising from the COVID-19 outbreak.

Together with Ofqual, the department has confirmed a package of measures, including adaptations to exams and assessments and changes to grading, to ensure fairness and help mitigate the disruption to students’ education.

Pupils or students absent from their education for a prolonged period due to long COVID-19 should be supported in the same manner as those absent due to other medium to long-term illnesses or medical conditions.

Students with any long-term health conditions, such as long COVID, may be eligible to apply for reasonable adjustments under the existing exam arrangements. Reasonable adjustments are changes made to an assessment or to the way an assessment is conducted that reduce or remove a disadvantage caused by a student’s disability. An example of this could be supervised rest breaks or extra time for assessments. They are needed because some conditions can make it harder for students to show what they know and can do in an assessment than it would have been had the student not been disabled. The Joint Council for Qualification (JCQ) has published detailed guidance on reasonable adjustments.

Furthermore, where students miss an assessment in a subject, for example due to illness, but have completed other exams or non-exam assessments in that subject, they may be able to use the existing special consideration process to apply to receive a grade based on the assessments they did complete. The JCQ has also published guidance on when students may be eligible for special consideration and how it works.