Inclusion and accessibility

We’re committed to ensuring our assessments are accessible to all candidates. This means taking account of the characteristics that the Equality Act protects and providing as level a playing field as possible for all pupils, regardless of their race, religion, gender and socio-economic or cultural background.

Our research

Questions around issues of fairness and inclusion arise in almost every aspect of assessment. Our research evidence informs a wide range of topics, such as:

• the merits of encouraging more students to take the EBacc
• the difference between equality and equity and whether there's anything we can do to make our assessments more equitable
• how to minimise unconscious bias in assessment
• the relationship between free school meal (FSM) eligibility, studying the EBacc subjects and GCSE attainment
• the impact of the 2013 Unlocking Potential programme
• the relationship between AS level grade, age, gender and centre type and A-level grades.

While we try to make our exams as fair as possible we can always do more. We’ll continue working to understand what potential bias we may introduce into our questions and work with colleagues on embedding specific recommendations that will enable our assessments to be more representative and inclusive.

Related resources

Find out more about our latest research focus and the work we’re doing to address key current factors:

• read our most recent blog post
• discover more within our research library