After years of hard work and a slew of challenging examinations, the results of UAE students’ A Levels, BTECs and I/GCSE exams are almost out.
But media coverage of tougher grading systems for 2023 has many pupils and parents worried – especially when it seems like the arbitrary bad luck of sitting exams this year rather than last year could mean the difference between whether students achieve their preferred university choice or not.
Here’s what you need to know about A Level, BTEC and I/GCSE results this year, and how they will be graded.
Tune in to SchoolsCompared.com on A Level, BTEC and GCSE Exam Results Day to read our live coverage of UAE schools’ results as and when they are released.
When are A Level, BTEC and I/GCSE Results out in the UAE?
The date you receive your results will depend on the qualification you are studying, the way it has been assessed, and the awarding organisation.
- A level and AS results will be available to schools on:
Wednesday 16 August 2023
- A level and AS results will be available to students on:
Thursday 17 August 2023 at 11am in the UAE (8am GMT). You can collect your results from school in person, or your school may email them out. If you applied to a British university using UCAS you can also check your online profile to see if your place has been confirmed or not, as they usually receive notification of your marks automatically.
- If you are studying a level 3 vocational or technical qualification such as a BTEC or T Level and are planning to use your results to go on to further or higher education, you will receive your results:
On or before Thursday 17 August 2023, according to the exam board regulator Ofqual.
- GCSE and IGCSE results will be available to schools on:
Wednesday 23 August 2023.
- GCSE and IGCSE results will be available to students on:
Thursday 24 August 2023 at 11am in the UAE (8am GMT).
- If you are studying a level 2 vocational or technical qualification and are planning to use your results to go on to further or higher education, you will receive your results:
On or before Thursday 24 August 2023
Some vocational and technical qualification results will have already been made available at different times throughout the year. If you’re unsure, you can find the date you will receive your results on the exam board website, or check directly with your school.
Will grades be lower this year?
During the pandemic, the exam grading system was adjusted in order to allow for the disruption suffered by students, resulting in grade inflation. Now that pandemic disruption has been minimised, the grading system has returned (almost) to normal, so the hard truth is that, yes, schools are likely to see that overall grades are lower in 2023 than they were in 2020, 2021 or 2022. For this reason, it is more useful to compare 2023 grade performance with the cohort of 2019 and before, rather than any of the pandemic years.
However, allowances will still be made for the Class of 2023, and examiners have said they will ensure that where student performance on a national level is lower than before the pandemic due to disruption, they will adjust grades accordingly. This means that a student who would have achieved a B grade in an A Level subject before the pandemic should still achieve a B grade in that subject in 2023, even if their performance in the examinations was a little weaker.
What if I don’t get the results I want?
If you think there has been a mistake in the marking of your exams, you can ask your school to contact the awarding organisation to check if there were any errors in how your assessment was marked. If this is done and the awarding organisation does not find any mistakes, your mark will not change, so your grade will not change. If the awarding organisation finds a mistake, your mark could go up or down. This could impact your grade either positively or negatively, depending on the nature of the mistake.
Deadline to request a priority copy of the paper (to check for administrative errors): Thursday 31 August 2023
Deadline to request a review of marking (wherein the paper would be remarked by a second examiner): Thursday 28 September 2023
Your school can request a priority review of marking if you need the outcome to get your university spot. Exam boards are supposed to complete priority reviews by 6 September.
Unfortunately, exam boards cannot give you extra marks just because you are close to a grade boundary, or because you did not get the grade predicted by your school. Ofqual, which regulates exam boards in the UK, says that in most years only around half of students achieve the grades their school predicted them, and it does not automatically mean something has gone wrong with the marking of your exam.
Although you can’t appeal your grade because you think you should have done better, you can always choose to sit exams in the autumn series of 2023 or in summer 2024 (although if you want to retake a particular subject, you have to resit all of the papers in that subject). If you do better the second time around, you can simply use the higher of the two grades to show to higher educational institutions and employers in future.
Further information
Read about the history of grade inflation in British education and the impact of the Covid. Learn how this year’s results could impact on girls more than boys. Read about both here.
Join us for GCSE, BTEC and A Level Exams Week. British School Exams Week on SchoolsCompared.com begins on Wednesday 16th August 2023 and continues through to Friday 25th August 2023.
Learn about the official position on GCSE, BTEC and A Level Results in 2023 here.
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