Sarah Hannafin, senior policy advisor and assessment lead for school leaders’ union NAHT, said:

“The move to terminal exams for GCSE and A level have meant students have been required to display their knowledge and skills in just one way, rather than having opportunities to demonstrate their progress and attainment throughout their courses. The past two years have shown how this move has led to a complete lack of any resilience in the exam system to deal with challenges.

“We welcome the exploration of different assessment approaches, including online. This is something some exam boards are already doing. There are benefits and challenges to doing this at scale, however. Schools need to have the right resources and enough staff with the confidence and capacity to deliver.

“The most important thing is that any new approaches to assessment work for young people and enable them to demonstrate their knowledge, skills and abilities in a more rounded way than the current system of terminal exams.”