Teachers have been asked by Ofqual to make a judgement of the grade they believe a student would have achieved had they sat their exams as normal this year.
All grades will be standardised and pupils will have the opportunity to retake if they are concerned their award is wrong.
With GCSE, AS and A-level exams cancelled this year, many students and their parents have been concerned about how the grades will be awarded.
Exams regulator Ofqual said teachers in England should grade pupils based on "fair, objective and carefully considered" judgements of the results they believe each student would likely have got if tests had not been shelved due to the coronavirus pandemic.
Many pupils previously spoke of their frustrations, with some suggesting they believed poor relationships with teachers could affect their final mark.
Now Ofqual has issued fuller guidance on how grades will be awarded and confirmed that all assessment grades will go through an external standardisation process.
This includes taking into account homework assignments, mock exams and any other recorded pieces of the student's performance.
Teachers are also asked to rank students within each grade in order to provide more information for the standardisation process. That process is explained in more detail further down.
These assessments will be sent on to the exam boards from 1 June and a final deadline will be issued to schools closer to the time, with at least two weeks' notice.
The exams regulator has said there is no requirement to set more mock exams or homework tasks to be used to help determine student grades.
Ofqual has communicated to schools and colleges that it is important no student should be put at a disadvantage if they are unable to complete any work set after schools were closed, for example if they do not have adequate access to a computer.
Additionally, educators are asked to give consideration to any work done after the closure of schools which is notably better or worse than the pupil's normal performance.
For some subjects, students will have completed or nearly finished non-exam assessments or coursework. The guidance says that schools and colleges do not need to ask students to complete any unfinished non-exam assessment work for the summer 2020 grades.
Will schools and colleges be asked to submit the evidence they have based grades on?
No, but they should keep records in case any queries arise.
Ofqual says in its guidance that "teachers are highly experienced at making assessment decisions and evidence shows they can rank order their students with a high degree of accuracy".
It adds that it is "vital" that schools and colleges take in the full range of available evidence of the student's work.
Schools and colleagues should be prepared to discuss internally the rank order and come to consensus that the same standard is being applied to all pupils.
Exam boards will then standardise the judgements once grades have been submitted. This will be done using a computer model drawing on:
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