Edexcel has welcomed the publication of the Working Group on 14-19 Reform and the opportunity to now participate in the dialogue through this consultation period.

It also supported the Chairman, Mike Tomlinson’s, comments supporting a five to ten year implementation programme and with that, the thorough piloting of any additions or changes to existing qualifications.

John Kerr, Edexcel’s Chief Executive, said: “The Group seems to be proposing a significant move towards a unitised framework, together with more reliance on internal, teacher-marked work where appropriate.

“Both of these approaches are already used within a school setting, through our BTEC Firsts and Nationals.

“Edexcel is the largest exam board to offer the joint currency of vocational and academic qualifications.  We have a long history of externally verifying or moderating teachers’ in-house marking of their students’ work.  It is a successful model for this approach, and something we have been calling for.

“However, we do have concerns which we will be putting to the Group:  our primary concern is to ensure that those students who currently fail to achieve higher than a C grade in five or more GCSEs are not disadvantaged further by failing to achieve the units they will be required to gain for a Diploma at the lowest levels.  There is currently provision for all such students to progress onto further vocational or general study.

“Secondly, I would have liked to see this Report align thinking with the concurrent Skills Strategy.  Each has a lot to inform the other and it would have been helpful to have considered some of the responses together rather than in isolation.

“Our role in the next few years is to restore confidence in the examination system so that students and parents and employers value the GCSE and AS/A level, and that these do not lose currency in the run up to any changes or the introduction of a new Diploma.”