To help schools and colleges prepare for the results season, here's an update on reviews of marking this year.

Improving the service

We've made it simpler for schools and colleges to view and track reviews of marking this year. Once a review has been requested, it will be possible to view all the student's details, not just a reference number. The outcome of the review will also include previous and new marks (not just grades) for the overall qualification and for each component or paper. Coupled with our new statements of marks, which are updated dynamically, this will make it easier than ever before for schools to access up-to-date results information about students. 

Additional quality checks

Our primary concern is always to make sure students taking our exams get the results they deserve. We've therefore improved our approach to reviews of marking this year by updating the training we give to examiners who review student papers and by increasing our monitoring of how they do this. This year, we'll be quality checking all 'reviewers' throughout the process, whether a student's mark has changed or not. 

What does this mean for schools and colleges? 

We are committed to ensuring students get the right outcome from a review in a timely way, and no university or college places are put at risk. Since we're introducing additional quality checks to the process this summer, this could mean our reviews take a day or two longer to complete. Our advice is to submit any priority reviews on behalf of students as soon as possible. 

What if there's a university place at risk?

Schools and colleges have a week to request a priority review of marking after A Level results day. The deadline for requesting our priority 2 service, covering AS and A Levels, as well as Cambridge Technicals, is 23 August. Schools should aim to get requests in quickly so we can respond early and help get any information to universities as promptly as possible. 

In the rare event we are unable to complete all the additional checks for the priority reviews by 31 August due to late requests, we will issue 'provisional' results of the review. We believe this is still in the best interests of the student. In all cases, students should keep the university informed so they can take this into account when making their decision.