Legacy AS and A Level

Following their public consultation, Ofqual published their consultation outcome regarding resits for ‘legacy’ AS and A Levels that will be expiring as part of the reform of general qualifications. The consultation confirms students taking ‘legacy’ AS and A Levels in the last scheduled sitting will have the opportunity to resit these qualifications. 

Resits will:

• Take place in the June series after the final assessment opportunity
• Be available in all ‘legacy’ AS and A Level subjects
• Be available for all AS and A2 units (including coursework units).

Therefore, in subjects where new qualifications were introduced for first teaching in September 2015 and 2016, the resit opportunities for the OCR ‘legacy’ AS and A Levels will be as follows:

*To confirm which specifications are available from each year, see our qual change planner.

**The final assessment arrangements for ‘less taught’ languages are available in a separate update. 

The following rules apply to students wishing to take resits in these qualifications:

• Resits will only be available to those students who have taken the qualification previously (either with OCR or another awarding body) or who had planned to take the qualification (but were not entered due to illness, injury or some other event outside of their control). 
• Students will be able to carry forward the results from or resit each unit.

Other than the final resit arrangements above, there are no resit rules for AS and A Level and Level 3 Certificate; candidates may resit units as many times as they wish. Centres simply need to make the required unit entries. The best result will then count towards certification. 

To retake an AS or A Level qualification, candidates can resit all units or resit some units and re-use others. The best result for each unit will then count towards certification. 

However, candidates may only re-enter for certification if they have retaken at least one unit which was used towards the first certification result or, where there are optional units, if they have taken another option. Otherwise, candidates may not re-certificate with a set of unit results which is identical to that which existed previously, whether for the purpose of getting all their subject grades on the same certificate or for any other reason. 

To obtain an A Level Double Award, candidates do not need to have been entered for the AS Level Double Award first. 

A ‘carry forward’ option exists for AS or A Level Mathematics, Units 4753, 4758 and 4776, which allows candidates to carry forward a coursework mark from a previous series, whilst resitting the examined component.

Once certification has been achieved and a unit has been used towards a qualification, it will become ‘locked’ to that qualification’s group. This means this unit can only subsequently be used towards qualifications in the same ‘qualification group’; the unit cannot be used towards a qualification in a different group. The qualification groups are defined as follows:

There are two types of locking:

• Single locking – a unit has been used towards the award of only one of the qualifications in the group. To unlock the unit from a qualification group, you need to make a new certification entry for that qualification.
• Double locking – a unit has been used for the awards of both the AS and the A Level qualifications in the group. To unlock the unit from a qualification group, you need to make a new certification entry for the A Level qualification only.

When a candidate certificates for AS or A Level in Mathematics, we strongly advise centres to make a new certification entry for any AS or A Level Mathematics qualification for which they have previously certificated. This will ensure all units become unlocked and the best set of grades can be awarded. For more information, see the JCQ GCE Mathematics Aggregation Rules – Guidance for Centres available on the JCQ website.

Once a unit has been used towards a qualification at either AS Level or A Level, it becomes ‘locked’ to that certification title at that level. No results for that unit can be used towards another certification title at that level, unless it becomes ‘unlocked’ (see below). However, results from that unit can be used in a re-certification of the original qualification, or used towards any certification at the other level. 

A unit becomes ‘unlocked’ from a certification if that certification is re-entered and where the re-certification result does not use that unit. Once a unit has been unlocked from a certification at a particular level, it can then be used towards any certification at that level. 

Where a candidate is following both endorsed and unendorsed courses, we recommend all certification entries should be made at the end of the course.