Guidance

Entries by year group: guide to the data submission process

Updated 2 September 2022

Applies to England

Introduction

In order to fulfil our regulatory and accreditation functions as set out in the Apprenticeships, Skills, Children and Learning Act 2009, we require awarding organisations to provide exams delivery data for regulated qualifications.

We collect the data on behalf of CCEA Regulation and share this data with them. When will data be collected?

Data will be collected according to the reporting schedule which is agreed and maintained by Ofqual’s data services team.

What data will be collected?

Entries by year group data will be collected for GCSE, AS, A level, AEA and the Extended Project Qualification (Project L3).

When will data be collected?

Data will be collected according to the reporting schedule which is agreed and maintained by Ofqual’s data services team.

Updates to formats and guidance

This guidance document will be updated regularly. Any changes to procedure will be incorporated into the guidance document.

How to submit your data

Your data should be submitted to us in CSV format. Please refer to the [‘Connecting to Ofqual’s data portal and uploading data’ document] on our web page.(https://www.gov.uk/guidance/submitting-data-to-ofqual) to help you submit your files to us. If you need to ask us about a data submission please contact the Data Services team. Please do not send your data files via email to Data Services or to any other Ofqual email address, or via Contact the Regulator in the Portal.

Uploaded data

Once files have been successfully uploaded, the data will be validated against a set of validation rules. These are detailed in the sections below. If validation is successful, the data is automatically transferred into our systems and you will receive email confirmation. If the file is unsuccessful at any stage of validation you will receive an email with details of the validation failure. Please correct your file and resubmit it.

Amendments to data

Ofqual staff will not alter data once it has been submitted. If you find an error or omission after you’ve had a successful upload, please notify us by email. We need to reject the existing submission before you can upload a new file.

How your data will be used

This data will be used to undertake our regulatory activities and, where required, to produce Official Statistics to fulfil our responsibility as a government department.

File format

The file must be CSV format and the first row must be headers as displayed in the ‘Name’ column of the table below. The subsequent rows must have the values of the data to be reported which must match the format and validation rules below.

General completion guidelines

This request is for the number of cash in entries for GCSE qualifications in all subjects, broken down by year group (yr9- to yr13+), and A level, AS, AEA and Project L3 qualifications in all subjects, broken down by year group (yr11- to yr14+). All data should be broken down by country (England, Wales and Northern Ireland) for the relevant exam series being reported.

For England and Wales, cash-in entries by year group are based on age as of 31 August. For Northern Ireland they are based on age as of 30 June. For example, candidates in England and Wales entering the summer 2017 exam series who will be 16 as of the 31st August 2017 should be classified as being in Year 11.

Data for all specification codes should be provided even if it is a nil return.

Centre codes

Centre Type	Description
1	Secondary Comprehensive or Middle	Community, Voluntary Aided or Controlled
2	Secondary Selective	Community, Voluntary Aided or Controlled
3	Secondary Modern	Community, Voluntary Aided or Controlled
4	Secondary Comprehensive or Middle	Foundation
5	Secondary Selective	Foundation
6	Secondary Modern	Foundation
7	Independent
8	FE Establishment
9	Sixth Form College
10	Tertiary College
11	Other (excluding private candidates)
13	City Academy
14	Free Schools
15	Private Candidates

Name	Description	Position	Validation Regular Expression	Description of Regular Expression
ExamSeries	Exam series data relates to, for example June 2016	1	^(June|November)([ ][0-9][0-9][0-9][0-9])$	Full month name of exam series and year.
ReportingDate	Date the file was due to be submitted regardless of when it was actually uploaded. Format accepted 120 ODBC canonical yyyy-mm-dd.	2	^(20)\d\d[-](0[1-9]|1[012])[-](0[1-9]|[12][0-9]|3[01])$	The date in the following format: year (4 digits), a dash, month (2 digits), a dash, day (2 digits).
AwardingOrganisation	Name of the awarding organisation	3	^.{1,100}$	1 to 100 characters accepted
QAN	Qualification Accreditation Number, for example 123/1234/1	4	^.{1,10}$	One, to ten characters accepted
QualificationLevel	Level of qualification, for example GCSE	5	^(GCSE|AS|A level|Project L3, AEA)$	One of the following list: GCSE, AS, A level, Project L3 or AEA.
SpecificationCode	Specification code also known as Subject Award Code and Cash-in Code	6	^.{1,7}$	One, to seven characters accepted
SpecificationTitle	Specification title also known as subject title	7	^.{1,150}$	One, to one hundred and fifty characters accepted
FullOrShortCourse	To indicate if subject is full or short course for applicable qualifications, for example GCSE. -2 accepted were not applicable, for example A level.	8	^(Full Course|Short Course|-2)$	Full course, short course or -2 accepted. -2 accepted where not applicable, for example A level.
RouteOfAssessment	To indicate if assessment is modular or linear for applicable qualifications, for example GCSE. -2 accepted were not applicable, for example A level.	9	^(Modular|Linear|-2)$	Modular, linear or -2 accepted.
QualificationStatus	To indicate if subject is reformed or legacy, for applicable qualifications.	10	^(Reformed|Legacy|)$	Reformed or legacy accepted.
Country	For AO’s to enter the specific country the data relates to, for example England, Wales, Northern Ireland.	11	^(England|Wales|Northern Ireland)$	England, Wales, Northern Ireland will be accepted -2 accepted where a specification has a nil return.
YearGroup	To indicate the year group of entry	12	^(Year 9-|Year 10|Year 11|Year 12|Year 13+|Year 11-|Year 13|Year 14+|-2)$	Accepted values for GCSE: Year 9-, Year 10, Year 11, Year 12, Year 13+. Accepted values for AS, A level, Project L3 and AEA: Year 11-, Year 12, Year 13, Year 14+ -2 accepted where the year group is unknown or where a specification has a nil return.
CentreType	To indicate centre type based on centre codes detailed on page 4 of this document	13	^\d{1,2}$	A numeric value between 1 and 15 accepted. -2 accepted where a specification has a nil return.
NumberOfCandidates	Number of candidates by qualification level, specification code, country, year group and centre type specified.	14	^\d{1,8}$	A numeric value between 0 and 99,999,999 accepted.

Contacts

For all queries relating to the data collection process, amendments to data previously provided, or for general guidance. please contact:

Data services

Ofqual
2nd floor, 1 Friargate
Station Square
Coventry
CV1 2GN

Email Data.Services@ofqual.gov.uk