Mr. Aidan Farrell:

I mentioned earlier two mechanisms by which we receive feedback after the examinations. It is either the expert subject commentators as reported through the media or through the actual subject associations, namely the teachers dotted across the country feeding back through their representative structures and as subject experts feeding into our marking processes through an engagement with the chief examiner to set and frame the marking scheme for that examination. A third element of feedback we get is from parents and candidates after the examinations.

Having worked for 15 years in the SEC, my experience is that if the candidates or their parents have concerns about the content of a paper, either that it was too challenging or that the candidates had a particular difficulty with a question that really fazed and threw them for the purpose of completing the examination, they contact us immediately after the examination. On occasion we have had 2,000 to 3,000 calls or emails from candidates or their parents around a particular question if candidates were somewhat thrown in the course of the examination. I believe we are an open and accessible organisation in terms of getting that feedback. The teachers are engaging with the candidates at school level, because quite often the teacher will go into school on the day of the examination to reassure and show support to the candidates and to see how things went for them. There are well-honed paths of feedback from that point of view.