Thousands of teenagers will be awarded GCSE and A level grades without sitting exams under plans to cope with further swine flu-induced school closures.
Regulators said that pupils who could not sit papers would receive grades based on other evidence, such as coursework or predicted marks.
Contingency plans to cope with large-scale school closures will be discussed tomorrow at an emergency meeting involving exam board regulators and government officials.
GCSE and A level exams are due to start next week. Primary school pupils are due to sit Key Stage 2 national curriculum tests. Common Entrance Exams for private schools are to take place from June 1 to 4.
Five schools have been shut after pupils fell ill with the H1N1 strain. The number of confirmed swine flu cases in Britain has risen to 28 people; all have responded well to treatment. An American woman yesterday became the first non-Mexican fatality.
Sir Liam Donaldson, the Chief Medical Officer for England, warned against complacency, saying that flu viruses could change character and become dangerous “very rapidly” and that a larger wave of infections could be expected in the autumn and winter.
The Independent Schools Council has told members to consider setting up quarantine rooms. The Health Protection Agency said shutting a school for at least a week was a precautionary measure when a contagious virus was “strongly suspected or confirmed”.
The Joint Council for Qualifications, which represents examination boards in the UK, said that an established procedure known as “special consideration”, would apply if “large-scale” school closures are necessary. A spokesman said: “Any candidate who misses an exam due to swine flu either because they have caught it or due to a school closure will be able to put forward a case for special consideration.”
Special Consideration is usually applied on a case-by-case basis to pupils prevented from sitting exams due to illness or other unforeseen circumstances. A level students must normally have completed 50 per cent of assessments and GCSE students 35 per cent.
Last year more than 300,000 exam marks were awarded in this way. The last time the procedure was applied on a mass scale was in 2007 following heavy floods in Hull, where 91 of the authority’s 99 schools were closed and thousands had to leave their homes.
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