Jane Parsons – Customer Support Manager for Bristol, Cornwall, Devon, Dorset, Gloucestershire, Hampshire and Isle of Wight, Herefordshire, Jersey and Guernsey, Somerset, West Sussex, Wiltshire and Worcestershire

In this blog, I will share practical guidance to help you manage Cambridge Technicals results this summer, including what to check if any results are missing or incomplete.

How Cambridge Technicals work 

Cambridge Technicals are unitised qualifications which means students take them in chunks, or units, throughout the course. These units are usually assessed either by exam or coursework. Teachers mark the coursework and a Cambridge OCR moderator then reviews, or ‘moderates’ it. Once students complete all the required units, we automatically issue students an overall grade. 

How are Cambridge Technicals qualification results graded? 

To achieve a qualification, students must pass a valid combination of units. A near-pass grade is also available for Level 3 examined units. This allows a student to achieve an overall qualification without passing one or more of the externally assessed units. The near-pass grade is shown as ‘R’ in the results documents.

All Level 3 and most Level 2 units are graded as Pass, Merit or Distinction. The Level 2 multiple choice tests (Units 1c) are Achieved or Not Achieved. 

To calculate your overall qualification grade, we convert each unit grade into points, based on the size of the unit and the grade achieved. The points for each unit are added together to give a total points score. 

We compare this total points score to the points grade boundaries to get your qualification grade. The points scores and grade boundaries do not change and are shown in the centre handbooks and the qualification level grade boundaries document.

How and when we issue results 

A key difference with Cambridge Technicals is that there is no official results embargo. You can give students their results as soon as they are issued.

This summer, Cambridge Technicals results are available from 8am on Monday 10 August. This is a couple of days earlier than other Level 3 results like A Levels.

We release them earlier than other Level 3 qualifications to give you more time to check and prepare, especially for those students who need them on 13 August alongside their A Levels.

Remember to stay alert to phishing attacks and scam attempts throughout the results period!

Accessing your results in Interchange

For the June 2026 series examined units, results and results reports will be available via Interchange from 8am on 10 August. If students have completed enough units, we will also issue qualification results at the same time.

You can access students’ results through the following reports on Interchange:

The candidate achievement report (PDF and CSV) shows the latest qualification grade achieved along with the unit results for your selected date range or series. You can run it for individual candidates or your whole cohort. Choose PDF if you want to use it as a results slip, or CSV if you need the data for further analysis. You can see a student-friendly example on our website.

To generate a report showing your June 2026 examined results and any full qualification results, select 'Series' and then 'June 2026' from the dropdown. 

If you would like all units to show on the report, enter the date range of when the units were achieved. To make sure any assessed grades are also included, for example, when there was a special consideration absence, enter an end date of 10 August 2026.

The examined marks report (CSV) is a centre-level report showing the examined results of all candidates by qualification for a particular series. Where special consideration has been applied, it also shows the tariff and special consideration marks that have been given. This report is produced as a CSV file, so you can generate all the exam results for a subject in one file. It’s particularly useful if you need to share the results and marks with teaching colleagues. 

To access the reports, log in to Interchange, hover over ‘Cambridge Technicals’ and click on ‘Results documents’ in the left-hand menu.

Grade boundaries for examined units 

For the June 2026 examined units, grade boundaries are published on Interchange by 8am on 10 August.

To access the document, log in to Interchange, hover over ‘Resources and materials’ and click on ‘Forms and documents’ in the left-hand menu. You will need the Centre Administrator role to access this area.

The grade boundary documents will be available publicly on the Cambridge OCR website from 8am on Thursday 13 August.

Understanding your EDI results files 

At 8am on 10 August, we will issue up to five EDI results files. You will receive results files for:

Cambridge Technicals (2016 suite)

• 6E26 – Examined units from the June 2026 exam series 
• 9I25 – Qualifications and moderated units awarded between 1 and 31 July 
• 9I25 – Qualifications and moderated units awarded between 1 and 4 August

Cambridge Technicals (2012 suite)

• 9C25 – Qualifications and moderated units awarded between 1 and 31 July
• 9C25 – Qualifications and moderated units awarded between 1 and 4 August

When importing your EDI results files, check carefully which series you are importing them into. You make qualification entries in the Annual/September series, so qualification and moderated unit results will appear there. Examined unit entries appear in the June series.

If you are an ESS SIMS user and want to import your qualification results into the summer series, we produce specific ‘summer’ basedata to enable you to do this – this is an optional download. This basedata and instructions on how to use it are available from our website. 

Hardcopy results reports and final certificates 

Hardcopy control reports and certificates will arrive by 12 August. The control reports show the results for all units, including the marks for examined units – you can see an example on our website.

Troubleshooting

Difficulties importing results 

If you are unable to import your EDI results files, before you do anything else, please check you have the latest version of the basedata. This is the first thing our Customer Support Team will ask you if you are having difficulties, so it’s best to check this first.

If you use ESS SIMS, there is a helpful YouTube video to view, if you need a reminder on how to refresh your basedata.

Some common error messages you may see when you’re downloading your EDI results file include:

• ‘Results for elements absent from imported basedata’ – This is where you may not have imported all the elements in your basedata and is usually resolved by refreshing the basedata to include all the units or qualifications you need. 
• 'Invalid series code in file' – This is where you are trying to import a results file that doesn’t match the basedata. This could be if you are trying import the moderated or qualification results into the optional summer basedata without amending the file or you have amended the file and are importing it into the annual (September) basedata. 
• ‘Results not matched by an entry’ – This is not a ‘fatal error’, and you can simply click through the messages to download the file.

Missing or incomplete results 

If any results are missing from your EDI file, first check Interchange to see whether we have issued them. In many cases, results are missing because of a unique candidate identifier (UCI) or because they were issued after the EDI file was created.

If you still have any missing or incomplete results, you can use the Cambridge Technicals Progress Tracker to help you identify the reason the result may be missing. There’s guidance on using the Tracker to do this within our FAQ. You can then use our website to help you resolve these issues. 

You may need to check:

• Your students have achieved all the units required.
• Your students have a valid combination of units. 
• All students are entered for the correct qualification, including the right qualification level. 
• You have claimed for all required moderated units, including resits, and at the correct grade. 
• None of your students have duplicate records (ie more than one eight-digit Cambridge OCR candidate number).

If you encounter any of these issues or have any further questions, contact us on 01223 55399.

On 12 and 13 August, our Customer Support Centre will open earlier than usual – you can reach us between 7.30am and 5pm.

For further guidance on managing Cambridge Technicals results, see our website.

About the author

Jane has been working within the education sector since 2006. She supports schools and colleges across the South West region by attending network meetings, providing information about our qualifications, resources and the support we offer.