AQA Education, trading as AQA (formerly the Assessment and Qualifications Alliance), is an awarding body in

England England is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is located on the island of Great Britain, of which it covers about 62%, and List of islands of England, more than 100 smaller adjacent islands. It ...

Wales Wales ( ) is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is bordered by the Irish Sea to the north and west, England to the England–Wales border, east, the Bristol Channel to the south, and the Celtic ...

and

Northern Ireland Northern Ireland ( ; ) is a Countries of the United Kingdom, part of the United Kingdom in the north-east of the island of Ireland. It has been #Descriptions, variously described as a country, province or region. Northern Ireland shares Repub ...

. It compiles specifications and holds examinations in various subjects at

GCSE The General Certificate of Secondary Education (GCSE) is an academic qualification in a range of subjects taken in England, Wales, and Northern Ireland, having been introduced in September 1986 and its first exams taken in 1988. State schools ...

, AS and A Level and offers vocational qualifications. AQA is a registered charity and independent of the government. However, its qualifications and exam syllabi are regulated by the Government of the United Kingdom, which is the regulator for the public examinations system in England and Wales. AQA is one of five awarding bodies which are recognised by schools across the country. AQA is also recognised by the regulators of the public exams systems for England, Wales and Northern Ireland to offer GCSE, AS and A Levels in the United Kingdom. AQA also offers the AQA Baccalaureate, a qualification also intended for students in Year 12 and 13 and which includes the study of three A-Levels, an extended project and extra-curricular enrichment activities. AQA is the largest examination board for GCSEs and GCE A Levels in England. The organisation has several regional offices, the largest being in

Milton Keynes Milton Keynes ( ) is a city status in the United Kingdom, city in Buckinghamshire, England, about north-west of London. At the 2021 Census, the population of Milton Keynes urban area, its urban area was 264,349. The River Great Ouse forms t ...

Guildford Guildford () is a town in west Surrey, England, around south-west of central London. As of the 2011 census, the town has a population of about 77,000 and is the seat of the wider Borough of Guildford, which had around inhabitants in . The nam ...

and

Manchester Manchester () is a city and the metropolitan borough of Greater Manchester, England. It had an estimated population of in . Greater Manchester is the third-most populous metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, with a population of 2.92&nbs ...

History

AQA was originally formed on 7 November 1997 as an alliance of NEAB and AEB/SEG exam boards and City & Guilds vocational awarding body. NEAB and AEB/SEG formally merged on 1 April 2000. City & Guilds chose to remain independent of the new organisation, but transferred its GNVQ provision to AQA. AQA holds the candidate records and awards for the following historic exam boards: * Associated Examining Board (AEB) * Associated Lancashire Schools Examinations Board (ALSEB) * Joint Matriculation Board (JMB) * Northern Examining Association (NEA) * Northern Examinations and Assessment Board ( NEAB) * North Regional Examinations Board (NREB) * North West Regional Examinations Board (NWREB) * North West Secondary Schools Examinations Board (NWSSEB) * Southern Examining Group (SEG) * South Eastern Regional Examinations (SEREB) ** University of Bristol School Examinations Council (UBSEC) * South West Regional Examinations Board (SWREB) * Yorkshire and Humberside Regional Examinations Board (YHREB) ** Yorkshire Regional Examinations Board (YREB) ** The West Yorkshire and Lindsey Regional Examinations Board (TWYLREB)

Examination reform

The Conservative Party under

Prime Minister A prime minister or chief of cabinet is the head of the cabinet and the leader of the ministers in the executive branch of government, often in a parliamentary or semi-presidential system. A prime minister is not the head of state, but r ...

David Cameron David William Donald Cameron, Baron Cameron of Chipping Norton (born 9 October 1966) is a British politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 2010 to 2016. Until 2015, he led the first coalition government in the UK s ...

initiated reforms for A Levels to change from a modular structure to a linear one. British examination boards ( Edexcel, AQA, OCR and WJEC) regulated and accredited by the Government of the United Kingdom responded to the government's reform announcements by modifying syllabi of several A Level subjects. However, the Labour Party and in particular the member of parliament Tristram Hunt announced that it would seek to halt and reverse the reforms and maintain the modular A-Level system. Labour's policy, and the modular AS- and A-Level system, are supported and promoted by the

University of Cambridge The University of Cambridge is a Public university, public collegiate university, collegiate research university in Cambridge, England. Founded in 1209, the University of Cambridge is the List of oldest universities in continuous operation, wo ...

and by the

University of Oxford The University of Oxford is a collegiate university, collegiate research university in Oxford, England. There is evidence of teaching as early as 1096, making it the oldest university in the English-speaking world and the List of oldest un ...

. The organisation announced that it will begin offering courses for which all assessment is carried out through examinations at the end of the course. This is commonly referred to as a linear course. Beforehand, they offered modular courses in England with several exams.

Controversies

During the summer 2022 exam series, AQA came under heavy criticism after several of its exam papers contained topics not included in the subject specific 'advance information'. Following an announcement from the exams regulator

Ofqual The Office of Qualifications and Examinations Regulation (Ofqual) is a non-ministerial government department that regulates qualifications, exams and tests in England. Colloquially and publicly, Ofqual is often referred to as the exam "watchdog ...

in December 2021, exam boards were required to produce advance information, covering the 'focus' of exams, to alleviate the disruption experienced by pupils during the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic (also known as the coronavirus pandemic and COVID pandemic), caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), began with an disease outbreak, outbreak of COVID-19 in Wuhan, China, in December ...

. In June 2022, GCSE Physics Higher Paper One contained a question on energy transfers and circuits. Advance Information had listed "series and parallel circuits" as a topic "not assessed" in the paper. Following the error, AQA announced that full marks would be awarded for the offending question. In addition, AQA announced that it would be performing "extra checks on the advance information and question papers for future exams". In relation to the June 2022 A Level Physics Paper Two, claims were made that advance information provided to pupils misleadingly stated that questions relating to Electric Fields and Capacitance would only be present synoptically and in low tariff questions; these topics made up the third question of the paper, worth 12 marks, and came up 8 times in the multiple choice section, in total these topics made up 23.5% of the 85 mark paper. The perceived error lead to significant backlash on social media. AQA responded by defending the paper, stating that the two topics were separate and therefore "neither carried enough marks to be included in the advance information list". On 17 June 2022, AQA apologised after A-level Law Paper Two contained a 30 mark question on

Rylands v Fletcher ''Rylands v Fletcher'' (1868) LR 3 HL 330 is a leading decision by the Judicial functions of the House of Lords, House of Lords which established a new area of English tort law. It established the rule that one's non-natural use of their land, w ...

and Private nuisance, accounting for 30% of the 100 mark paper, which had not been included in the advance information. In response, AQA stated that it would "look at how students performed" after the paper had been marked and that it would "take any action necessary to protect upils" On 17 June 2022, exams regulator

criticised AQA and other exam boards for the 'distress' which mistakes on the advance information had caused pupils. Shortly following the AQA A-Level Chemistry paper 2 (sat on the morning of 20 June 2022) photographs surfaced on social media, namely Twitter, showing the paper had been leaked potentially up to seven days before it took place. Throughout the day that followed, AQA were reluctant to comment on the matter. This revelation was met with frustration and disbelief from students, teachers, and parents. In 2024, it was reported that the AQA's Chinese-language

textbook removed all references to the

Taiwan Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia. The main geography of Taiwan, island of Taiwan, also known as ''Formosa'', lies between the East China Sea, East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocea ...

under pressure from the Embassy of China, London.

Chief executives

The Chief Executive of AQA runs the organisation on a day-to-day basis, while being accountable to the AQA Council. The role was known as the Director General from its introduction in April 1998 until July 2010. * Kathleen Tattersall OBE, 1 April 1998 – 30 September 2003 * Mike Cresswell CBE, 1 October 2003 – 31 March 2010 * Andrew Hall, 4 June 2010 – 31 August 2017 * Toby Salt, 1 September 2017 – 8 September 2019 * Mark Bedlow, 9 September 2019 – 31 August 2020 (interim chief executive) * Colin Hughes, 1 September 2020–

References

External links