Reviews of marking and enquiries about results
If you think there has been a mistake in the marking of your exams or assessments, you should talk to your school or college. Your school or college can ask the awarding organisation to check if there were any errors in how your exam or assessment was marked. If your school or college decides not to take forward your request for an awarding organisation to review the marking of your work, you can ask your school or college to review that decision.

For some qualifications, including GCSEs, AS and A levels, and Technical Qualifications (part of a T Level), your school or college can also ask to see your marked assessment or exam paper. They can do this before deciding whether to ask for a review of marking, to see whether they think there was a mistake when your work was marked. The awarding organisation may charge for this.

If you are a private candidate, you can contact the awarding organisation directly to ask for your marked paper or a review of marking.

If your school or college asks for a review of marking and the awarding organisation does not find any mistakes, your mark will not change, so your grade will not change.

If the awarding organisation finds a mistake, your mark could go up or down. If your mark changes, this could mean that your grade stays the same, goes up or goes down.

An awarding organisation cannot give you extra marks just because your mark was close to a grade boundary or because you did not get the grade your school or college predicted. In most years, at A Level, only around half of students achieve the grades their school predicted them. If you don’t get the grade your school predicted, it does not automatically mean something has gone wrong with the marking or grading of your exam.

For GCSE, AS, A level, T Level and some vocational or technical qualifications, your school or college can also apply for a review of moderation of non-exam assessment that was marked by your teacher, if marks were changed by the awarding organisation following moderation. This review would apply to all students taking the qualification at your school or college, not just to you.

If the awarding organisation finds a mistake with the moderation, your grade could stay the same or go up, but it cannot go down. This is because the review affects many students, and schools and colleges may not be able to get permission from everyone to request the review. This review would apply to all students taking the qualification at your school or college, not just to you.

The awarding organisation may charge fees for reviews of marking or moderation if your grade does not change. There will be no fees if your grade changes following a review. Your school or college will be able to tell you about any fees that you may need to pay.

If you are not sure whether this would apply to the qualification you are taking, you should speak to your school or college.

Awarding organisations publish details of the deadlines for seeking reviews of marking or moderation, and appeals, on their websites.

Your school or college can request a priority review of marking if you need the outcome of the review to get your higher or further education place. Awarding organisations will aim to complete priority reviews by 6 September, which is UCAS’s advisory deadline for higher education providers to hold places open for students.

If you are a private candidate, you should make your request for a priority review directly to your awarding organisation.

For all qualifications, if you and your school or college still have concerns after asking the awarding organisation to review your mark, your school or college can challenge the review decision through an appeal. The possible outcomes of an appeal are the same as for reviews of marking or moderation, explained above. Your school or college will be able to tell you about any fees you may need to pay.

Your school or college can also challenge awarding organisations’ decisions about reasonable adjustments, special consideration and malpractice. If you have concerns about any of these decisions, speak to your school or college.

Appeals

On this page, you will find information about the appeals process and how to appeal.

Who can appeal

You can submit an appeal to us if you are a:

• Head of centre
• Private candidate
• Centre staff member who has been subject to malpractice sanctions.

If you’re a student or parent and you'd like to appeal, please contact your school or college.

What you can appeal against

You can use our appeals process for:

1. Exam and non-exam assessment (NEA) results. You can only make an appeal if you've already requested and received the outcome of a review of marking or moderation review. Appeals should focus on whether an awarding body has:
   1. a) used procedures that were consistent with regulatory requirements.
   1. b) applied its procedures properly and fairly in arriving at judgements.
   1. c) properly applied the mark scheme.
2. Malpractice decisions – when we have applied a malpractice penalty.
3. Access arrangements and special consideration decisions – if we’ve declined your application or you disagree with the level of adjustment made.

Fees

You will be charged a fee for each stage of the appeals process:

• Stage 1: preliminary stage £114.10
• Stage 2: appeal hearing £195.60

For review of marking appeals, you will now be charged per individual candidate at the unit level.

You will not be charged if your appeal is upheld at either stage. If you do need to pay, we’ll send you an invoice when the appeals process is complete.

If you are a private candidate you will be required to make payment before your appeal can be started. Once we receive your application we will get in contact with you to let you know how payment can be made.

Stages of an appeal

There are two stages to the appeals process, the preliminary stage and appeal hearing.

Stage 1: preliminary stage

The preliminary stage is the first step of the appeals process.

You need to submit your preliminary appeal application within:

• 30 days of receiving the outcome of the review of marking or moderation; or
• 14 days of receiving the original access arrangements or special consideration decision.

When submitting your appeal, you must clearly set out the grounds for appeal.

We’ll use regulatory documentation to evaluate your grounds for appeal. If your appeal goes ahead, we’ll confirm this to you in writing. A member of staff with no previous involvement in the case will investigate it and we’ll send you a report of the outcome.

For appeals made on the grounds of an unreasonable application of the mark scheme, we’ll commission a review and report from a senior examiner who will be provided with your grounds of appeal.

We aim to complete our investigation within six weeks of receiving your application.

Stage 2: appeal hearing

If you're unhappy with the outcome of the preliminary stage, you can request an appeal hearing.

You must have completed the preliminary stage in order to proceed to an appeal hearing. You need to submit your appeal hearing application within 14 days of receiving the preliminary stage outcome.

The appeal will be heard by an appeal panel which will include one independent member. We’ll contact you to arrange a suitable date for the hearing and all hearing documentation will be circulated to you a week before the hearing takes place.

If you're still unhappy with the outcome, you can make a further appeal to Ofqual's exam procedures review service

https://www.ocr.org.uk/Images/669076-post-results-services-fees-for-2022-23.pdf