Dear Prof Koglbauer and Ms Harvey,
Thank you for your email to Sally Collier and Roger Taylor, and my apologies for the delay in responding to you. I am responding on their behalf.
Prior to the summer, we announced that we would make an adjustment to the grading standards in GCSE French and German, to provide better alignment with GCSE Spanish. We implemented this by making an adjustment to the statistical predictions that were used as part of the standardisation process.
Although some students will have been awarded their centre assessment grade rather than the calculated grade, our approach still means that the adjustment has been taken into account – because students have either been awarded the calculated grade (which had this adjustment taken into account) or the centre assessment grade (if higher than the calculated grade). We will keep under review the grading standards in GCSE French and German in future series.
I hope this addresses your concerns.
Private Secretary to the Chief Regulator, Ofqual