GovWire

Main trends

The main trends in access arrangements for GCSE, AS and A level for the 2021 to 2022 academic year in England were:

1. There were 512,085 approved access arrangements, up by 14.4% compared to the 2020 to 2021 academic year. This is a continuation of the upward trend seen before the 2020 to 2021 academic year. In the 2020 to 2021 academic year the decision to cancel the summer exams and to instead award teacher-assessed grades (TAGs) was announced before the deadline for submitting applications for access arrangements. Please note that more than one type of access arrangement can be granted per candidate.

2. 5,485 centres (92.9% of all centres) had approved access arrangements for one or more of their candidates this year, compared to 5,175 centres (88.2% of all centres) in the 2020 to 2021 academic year.

3. Among the types of access arrangements approved, arrangements for 25% extra time made up 65.3% of all approved arrangements in the 2021 to 2022 academic year, compared to 65.8% in the 2020 to 2021 academic year.

4. There were 61,125 requests for modified papers this year, up 4.9% on summer 2019. We compare the numbers against summer 2019 since no GCSE, AS and A level exams took place in summer 2020 and 2021 due to the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic and therefore data on modified papers was not collected.