Guidance

Student Guide 2023: condensed

Updated 20 November 2023

Applies to England

Arrangements for exams and assessments in 2023

Exams and assessments are largely back to normal in 2023. This is important, to prepare you for college, university or employment and help you to make choices about your future.

There is some support for students taking GCSE, AS and A levels:

View an accessible version of this diagram

Where vocational and technical qualifications are taken instead of A levels for progression, similar support will be provided.

Preparing for exams

Exam timetable

Your school or college will give you a copy of your exam timetable. Make sure you check this carefully so you know where you need to be and when. If you think there’s a mistake, speak to your school or college.

For GCSEs, AS and A levels, the timetable includes contingency sessions in case an exam can’t take place as planned nationally and needs to be moved. Contingency sessions are on the afternoons of 8 and 15 June, and the day of 28 June. You must be available for all three sessions. For other qualifications, check with your school or college whether there are specific contingency sessions that you must be available for.

Reasonable adjustments

Reasonable adjustments, often called access arrangements, are changes made to an exam or assessment, or to the way an exam or assessment is carried out so that disabled students can show what they know, understand, and can do. Reasonable adjustments can’t change what is being assessed.

Different adjustments can be made depending on the student’s needs. You should speak to your school or college for more information.

During exams and assessments

Exam rules and cheating

Make sure you know what you need to bring to your exams and what you can and can’t take into the exam room.

It’s important you understand the rules when sitting exams. Breaking the rules is called malpractice, and is very serious. It could mean you don’t get any marks for a paper, or don’t get your qualification.

Remember, don’t bring in phones, devices or watches to your exams or you risk being disqualified.

Special consideration

If a student is affected by an issue outside of their control at the time of an exam or assessment, then they might be entitled to special consideration. This could be changes to how assessments are taken, a small number of extra marks, or awarding a grade if you unavoidably miss an exam (as long as you have completed at least one other exam or non-exam assessment).

A student cannot get special consideration because their education has been disrupted – it is only given when something happens at the time of assessment.

If you think you might be eligible for special consideration you should talk to your school or college.

After your exams

Marking and grading

Marking is done in different ways depending on the assessment. Some work might be marked by your teachers, and then a sample checked by the awarding organisation (the organisation that gives you your qualification and grade) to make sure that it meets their expectations.

Exams are marked anonymously by expert examiners. Different questions from one paper are often marked by different examiners.

Your work will be marked and graded in the normal way this year, as it would have been before the pandemic. Because of the disruption caused by the pandemic, examiners will be slightly lenient when setting grade boundaries for GCSE, AS and A level. Vocational and technical qualifications that are used instead of A levels for progression to higher education, will use a similar approach.

Results

If you’re taking AS, A levels, or the Extended Project Qualification (EPQ), you’ll get your results on Thursday 17 August 2023. If you’re studying a level 3 vocational or technical qualification and are planning to use your results to go on to further or higher education, you’ll receive your results on or before 17 August.

If you’re taking GCSEs you’ll get your results on Thursday 24 August 2023. If you are studying a level 2 vocational or technical qualification and are planning to use your results to go on to further or higher education, you’ll receive your results on or before 24 August.

Reviews of marking and moderation, appeals

If you think there has been a mistake in the marking of your exams or assessments, you should talk to your school or college. Your school or college can ask the awarding organisation to check if there were any errors in how your exam or assessment was marked.

For some qualifications, including GCSEs, AS and A levels, and Technical Qualifications (part of a T Level), your school or college can ask to see your marked assessment or exam paper. They can do this before deciding whether to ask for a review of marking, to see if they think there was a mistake when your work was marked.

Schools and colleges can also appeal decisions on access arrangements and reasonable adjustments, special consideration, malpractice and review of marking and moderation decisions.

If you are a private candidate (you didn’t study at a school or college), you can contact the awarding organisation directly to ask for your marked paper or a review of marking.

More information

Ofqual’s full student guide with more information is available on the Ofqual website.

Infographic: accessible version

The image shows a line of four jigsaw pieces coloured blue, red, orange and green. Each individual jigsaw contains some text on one of the following four subjects:

Support materials

Students will get formulae and equation sheets in some GCSEs so won’t have to memorise as much.

Grading protection

Protection in place for GCSE and A level student cohorts

Spaced-out timetable

Exam papers in the same subject well spaced out in the timetable

Help with languages

Modern foreign language GCSE papers no longer have to test unfamiliar vocabulary