����Vlog

The way to reduce the assessment burden is to cut the number of exams that students sit, rather than “tinkering” with shorter exam papers, a school leaders’ union has warned.

The comments come after fresh ����Vlog analysis called into question the effectiveness of schools picking and choosing between exam boards to reduce exam times, finding that there is much more scope to do so in certain subjects than others.

After the recommended shortening average exam times by around 10 per cent, Ofqual chief regulator Sir Ian Bauckham said in November that schools were already in a position to do this - if they mixed and matched exam boards by subject to choose the board that offered shorter exams.

While ����Vlog analysis in May showed that schools could reduce exam times in this way, education leaders said they would prefer to focus on reforming the exam system.

Reducing exam time often isn’t possible

Now new ����Vlog analysis of June 2025 GCSE entries data reveals that, in most cases, schools are not entering their students into the longest GCSE exams - therefore, their ability to reduce exam times is often limited.

����Vlog analysed the entries for the most popular qualifications and found that GCSE history was the only qualification where more than half of the cohort sat the longest exams. In other words, there was more scope in history than in any other subject to shift to an exam board that runs shorter exams.

The history GCSE available from Pearson comprises three papers totalling 280 minutes; with other exam boards, GCSE history exams last 240 minutes in total.

Last June 294,000 students entered GCSE history exams. Of these, 167,000 students (57 per cent) sat the longer Pearson qualification, so could, in theory, have sat shorter history exams instead.

However, while a significant proportion of GCSE history students could therefore have shorter exams, in other subjects it is more common for schools to direct students to exam boards that run shorter exams.

For example, in combined science, the most entered qualification in June 2025, 389,000 students sat the longest qualification under AQA out of a cohort of 944,000.

Meanwhile, just 59,000 out of 615,000 students who entered English literature GCSE took the longest Eduqas papers; for English language, only 5,700 students entered the longest OCR exams out of a total cohort of 826,000 - less than 1 per cent.

The GCSE geography qualifications available under Pearson and Eduqas have the longest exam times - but out of 294,000 total entrants for the subject, only 57,000 sat these papers.

Spanish and French are the most-entered modern foreign languages. Last year 131,000 students entered Spanish GCSEs, and of these, just 27,000 sat the longest set of assessments, from Pearson. Similarly, 27,000 French GCSE entrants took the longest exams (also Pearson) out of a total of 128,000.

For many subjects, then, a large majority of students are already signed up with the exam board (or boards) that offers the shortest exams.

Call to cut the number of exams

Pepe Di’Iasio, general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, said that the assessment burden should be reduced by enabling students to sit fewer exams, rather than “tinkering at the margins” with exam times.

Mr Di’Iasio told ����Vlog: “The curriculum and assessment review recommended that the Department for Education and Ofqual seek to reduce overall GCSE exam volume by at least 10 per cent, with Ofqual encouraged to introduce a new principle which puts consideration of the volume of exam assessment at the heart of assessment design.

“While this is a step in the right direction, we’d like to see further action to materially reduce the number of individual papers sat by students and the amount of content they are required to revise.”

The benefits of students sitting fewer exams, Mr Di’Iasio said, include better mental health and greater flexibility and local emphasis in the curriculum.

“Tinkering at the margins will not be as effective, and we are concerned by the attempt to put the responsibility for reducing exam time squarely on the shoulders of school leaders, he said. “Schools have many factors to consider when choosing the right qualifications for their setting, and cannot simply switch exam boards purely on the basis of the length of assessment.”

Mr Di’Iasio added: “This does not appear to be what the [curriculum and assessment] review was suggesting at all.”

Sarah Hannafin, head of policy and assessment lead at the NAHT school leaders’ union, said it was “far too simplistic” for schools to change exam boards based on the duration of exams.

She said Ofqual and the exam boards need to “take the curriculum and assessment review recommendations seriously” and look at more fundamental changes to exams.

An Ofqual spokesperson said: “Following the curriculum and assessment review, we are working with the government and awarding organisations to reduce the time spent in GCSE exams by 2.5 to 3 hours on average, while maintaining high standards in the assessment system.

“We will be publishing further details on next steps in the autumn.”