Understanding the moderation process in subjects with non-examined assessment
28 September 2026
Alex Harris, Assessment Standards Senior Manager and Sarah Millington, Health and Social Care and Child Development Subject Advisor
The moderation process can sometimes feel complex, particularly for centres delivering different qualifications with non-examined assessment (NEA). Each year we receive lots of questions from centres about the moderation process.
In this blog Sarah Millington and Alex Harris describe how the moderation process works, answer some of your key questions and explain how you can find further support.
What is moderation and why is it an essential part of assessment?
Moderation is a quality assurance process to ensure assessment decisions within centres are consistent, fair and in line with national standards. It allows an awarding body to look at assessment decisions within a centre across different markers and groups. Moderation applies to coursework and NEA across qualifications such as GCSEs, A Levels, Cambridge Nationals, Cambridge Technicals and Cambridge Advanced Nationals.
How and where does moderation take place?
Moderation happens once students have completed work, the teacher has marked it and the work has been internally standardised. Once these steps have taken place, the centre must submit marks to us by the deadline specific to the qualification.
The centres will then receive a request for a sample of work. Depending on the qualification or the nature of the work, the sample may be uploaded digitally, sent to the moderator or be held in the centre ready for a moderation visit.
It is important that you know how moderation works for your specific subject: different qualifications can have different moderation timescales, deadlines and windows. You can find information for the different qualifications and subjects on our administration pages.
When the moderator looks at the work, they are checking the standard of marking and making sure that assessment or marking criteria have been applied correctly.
All our moderators have been through standardisation and training and their performance is reviewed throughout the process to ensure a fair and consistent assessment process takes place and that marks are in line with the national standard.
What happens when a moderator looks at work?
Moderators will look at a sample of work that represents the range of attainment within the centre.
- If the marks align with the expected standards, no further action is needed
- If discrepancies are found, the sample may be extended
- For some qualifications, centres may be asked to review marks
- Cambridge OCR may adjust the centres marks if centre marking is not felt to be accurate.
What happens after moderation?
The moderator reviews the sampled work to determine whether the candidate evidence supports the mark awarded by the centre. They record the mark they believe is appropriate based on that review.
Once the moderator has looked at a sample of work, consideration is given to how well the marks the centre has given align with the marks which they recorded. A decision is made about whether the centre marks can be accepted for the whole cohort or whether some form of adjustment or intervention is needed.
Because NEA often involves a number of complex judgments and a degree of subjectivity in the assessment, the moderation process does not require absolute agreement between the centre and the moderator. However, there has to be enough common ground to be confident that the centre marks are consistent with the national standard.
Where the difference between the centre marks and moderator marks is significant, action may be needed. Depending on the type of qualification and the stage the moderation process has reached, this could mean then either an adjustment will be made to the centre marks or the centre may need to review their marking and submit updated marks.
As part of some moderation processes, (such as for Cambridge Technicals and Cambridge Advanced Nationals) a centre will receive provisional feedback at the point of moderation followed by a report soon afterwards. In other qualifications, a moderation report will be sent to the centre on results day.
The feedback and/or report received after moderation takes place should provide information on where centre marking has been too lenient, too harsh, inconsistent, or in line with national standards.
What can I do if I disagree with the outcome of my moderation?
If you disagree with the results you can request a review of moderation. If you are unsure of how this works or have questions , please contact us at [email protected] or see our post results page on our website. You can find more information on the moderation for different qualifications here:
What help is available when preparing to mark NEA units?
Marking internally assessed units is not easy whether you are a new or experienced teacher. We always advise attending up to date training and use resources available for the qualification to help with how to award marks and to decide whether the work your candidate has produced meets the marking criteria.
Information about professional development events and resources can be found on Teach Cambridge in the relevant subject area.
Do we need to carry out internal standardisation
It is really important that centres use some form of internal standardisation. Where there is more than one teacher assessing the same NEA work, inconsistencies between their decisions is a common root cause of marking issues found during moderation.
Even if you are the only teacher assessing NEA work, getting a colleague to sense check a sample of your internal assessment for consistency between candidates and against the NEA requirements and criteria can help to identify any issues and give confidence in your approach before you get to moderation.
You can find more information about internal standardisation in the subject specifications or on our internal standardisation generic guide.
Stay connected
If you have any questions, you can email us at [email protected] or call us on 01223 553998. You can also sign up to subject emails to keep up-to-date with the latest news, information and resources.
If you are considering teaching any of our qualifications, use our online form to let us know, so that we can help you with more information.
About the authors
Alex has worked for Cambridge OCR since 2002, initially in a variety of administration and operations roles, then as a Qualifications Manager from 2005 to 2012, working predominantly on PE and Sport qualifications. He has worked in Assessment Standards since February 2012 across a wide range of subjects and qualifications and specialises in vocational qualifications and performance-based NEA. Alex studied Public Policy, Government and Management at the University of Birmingham from 1998 to 2001.
Sarah joined Cambridge OCR after teaching Health and Social Care and Child Development over a period of 16 years. Having been a teacher, subject lead and moderator within her career, she has planned and developed subjects to meet the needs of her students to allow them to become independent learners, focusing on effective teaching and learning skills. She has experienced and survived several qualification changes: GCSEs to Cambridge Nationals, and A Levels to Cambridge Technicals. At Cambridge OCR Sarah has been involved during the introduction of Cambridge Nationals in Health and Social Care and Child Development, and the development of the Cambridge Advanced National (AAQ) in Health and Social Care.