Last updated: 21 Dec 2007

Schedule

The regulators developed draft qualification and subject criteria in spring 2007 in collaboration with stakeholders including teachers, awarding bodies, subject associations, higher education organisations and other interested parties.

QCA's online consultation on the draft criteria took place between 20 May and 14 September 2007. We received over 1,900 responses. The findings of the consultation can be found in the GCSE qualification and subject criteria consultation summary reports, which can be accessed from this page.

The Department for Children, Education, Lifelong Learning and Skills (DCELLS) and the Council for the Curriculum Examinations and Assessment (CCEA) carried out their own consultations in Wales and Northern Ireland.

Following the online consultation, we held a series of meetings with the original groups of stakeholders who had developed the first drafts of the qualification and subject criteria. These groups looked at the feedback from the online consultation and made any necessary amendments to the criteria. The qualification and subject criteria are now finalised, and awarding bodies have begun their specification development.

Disability Discrimination Act

As part of our consultation on the draft GCSE subject criteria, we asked stakeholders whether they thought that we had only included requirements essential to each subject, and therefore not put unnecessary barriers in the way of students with disabilities.

Under the Disability Discrimination Act regulators have a duty to review and evaluate requirements contained within the qualification and subject criteria. These requirements are what students must demonstrate, including knowledge, understanding and skills.

As part of the consultation and review we have:

• identified the specific purpose of each requirement, and examined the manner in which each requirement achieves its purpose
• considered the impact that each requirement may have on people with disabilities and, if a requirement may have an adverse impact, asked whether the application of the requirement is absolutely necessary
• reviewed the purpose and effect of each requirement in the light of changing circumstances - such as developments in technology
• examined whether the purpose for which any requirement is applied could be achieved in a way that does not have an adverse impact on disabled people
• documented the way these issues have been addressed, the conclusions arrived at, and the reasons for those conclusions.