What happens after you have taken your exams or assessments
Published 20 November 2024
Applies to England
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This publication is available at https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/ofqual-student-guide-to-exams-and-assessments-in-2025/what-happens-after-you-have-taken-your-exams-or-assessments
How are my exams and assessments marked?
After you have taken your exam or assessment, your work will be marked. Awarding organisations decide how this is done. Your work could be marked on paper or online and could be marked by several different markers. Awarding organisations check markers’ work at every stage to make sure it is consistent and high quality.
If your qualification includes non-exam assessment, for example course work or a performance, this may be marked by the awarding organisation or by your teacher, depending on the awarding organisation’s requirements. If you have concerns about how your non-exam assessment has been marked or how your provisional grade has been worked out, please speak to your school or college.
Where assessments, for GCSE, AS, A level and Technical Qualifications within a T level, are marked by your teacher, you will be told the marks given. If you do not think your mark is correct, you can ask your school or college for a review of your teacher’s marking before your marks are given to the awarding organisation. Someone not previously involved in the marking will review your work. Speak to your school or college for information about how to do this.
The awarding organisation then checks your school or college’s marking meets their expectations. Some awarding organisations call this moderation, while others might call it standards verification.
Awarding organisations check teachers’ marking of non-exam assessments so that marking is consistent across all schools and colleges. Awarding organisations might look at a sample of work from your school or college to check that the marking is in line with the national standard. If the marking of the sample is in line with the national standard, then no change will be made to the marks given. However, if marking is found to be too strict or too generous, marks will be adjusted to make sure you receive an accurate mark. Your work might be included in that sample.
How are grade boundaries decided?
For many qualifications, after the exam papers or assessments have been marked, awarding organisations will then decide how many marks are needed for each grade. This is known as grading. Awarding organisations review the papers to see the quality of student work and all the available evidence before recommending the grade boundaries – the number of marks needed to get each grade. This happens after work has been marked, so that awarding organisations can see how students have answered the questions.
For some VTQs, each piece of assessed work will be given a grade, and these will be combined to give your final overall grade.
For GCSEs, AS and A levels, grading arrangements will be comparable to summer 2024. Exam boards will make sure that the standard of work to achieve a particular grade is comparable to summer 2024.
There are no set numbers of each grade available. You will be awarded a grade that reflects your performance in your exams and assessments. As usual, Ofqual will make sure that awarding organisations take a suitable approach to grading in all their qualifications.
Grade boundaries vary from year to year and are often different between awarding organisations offering the same qualification. This is important so that the grade boundaries reflect the level of challenge of the papers taken that year. Although senior examiners aim to produce exam papers of the same difficulty each year there can still be some variation in difficulty from year to year. Changes to grade boundaries make sure that it is no easier or harder to get a grade from one year to the next. Senior examiners will recommend grade boundaries for every qualification after they have reviewed students’ work in their exams and other assessments.
As grade boundaries can change each year, when preparing for your exams or assessment you should focus on the content, knowledge and skills required for each qualification, rather than the grade boundaries set for papers from previous years.
Tech Awards are taken alongside GCSEs and include subjects such as Pearson’s BTEC Level 1/2 Technical Award in Performing Arts or OCR’s Level 1/2 Cambridge National in Health and Social Care. The first awards for these new qualifications were made in 2024. As teachers and students will be less familiar with these qualifications, awarding organisations will take this into account when setting grade boundaries, as has happened with other new qualifications previously. For Tech Awards, students must take the external assessment at the end of the course.
Similarly, some Technical Qualifications within T Levels are in the first few years of teaching and assessment. Teachers and students will be less familiar with these qualifications, so awarding organisations will take this into account when setting grade boundaries in the first years of awards.
When is results day?
The date you receive your results will depend on the qualification you are taking, the way it has been assessed, and the awarding organisation.
You will receive A level, AS and T Level results on Thursday 14 August 2025.
If you are studying a Level 3 VTQ and are planning to use your results to progress to higher education, you will receive your results on or before Thursday 14 August 2025.
You will receive GCSE results on Thursday 21 August 2025.
If you are studying a Level 2 or Level 1/2 VTQ and are planning to use your results to progress to further education, you will receive your results on or before Thursday 21 August 2025.
Some VTQs are taken on-demand and results for these will be available at different times throughout the year. You can find the date you will receive your qualification results on the website of the relevant awarding organisation, or you can ask your school or college.
Results for GCSEs taken in November 2025 will be released to students in January 2026.
If you have concerns about when you will receive you results or what your results are, you should speak to your school or college who will be able to help you.