The Appeals Process for GCSE, AS and A level

Deadline for appeal: 17 September 2020

Firstly, you must make sure that you’re clear on what basis you can appeal your result; you can only appeal if you think there has been an error in the process. You can’t appeal just because you do not agree with the grade you received.

You should speak to your school or college if you think there may have been an error and you might have reason to appeal. Only schools and colleges can submit an appeal. This also applies to private candidates - you must ask the centre that submitted your centre assessment grade to appeal on your behalf.

Remember that if you appeal your grade, it can go up, down or stay the same. If someone else in your cohort appeals their grade and the exam board finds an issue that affects other students’ results, your grade is protected and will not go down if the appeal was not made on your behalf.

If your school or college is unhappy with the outcome of the process, it can appeal this decision through Ofqual’s Examination Procedures Review Service.

If you have concerns about bias, discrimination or something else that suggests that your school or college did not behave with care or integrity when determining centre assessment grade or rank order information, you should first raise these concerns with your school or college. Your school or college must have a procedure to deal with complaints. If you are concerned that you have evidence of serious malpractice by the school or college, it may be appropriate to bring those concerns directly to the exam board.

The Government requires exam boards to consider this as potential malpractice or maladministration. They must investigate cases where there is evidence to suggest that the centre assessment grades or rank order information submitted may not have been determined appropriately. Remember that you would need to have evidence for this to be investigated by the exam board.

Where the investigation finds that the centre assessment grade or rank order information was determined inappropriately and that this has led to an incorrect final result, the exam board must consider the action needed, including correcting that result if appropriate.

Such allegations would be very serious. The national results do not indicate bias on the part of teachers. This does not mean that there are not individual cases of bias, but the Government expects them to be rare. You can find out more information on how to make a complaint of malpractice or maladministration in our student guide to appeals and malpractice or maladministration complaints.

See Also

Guide to 2020 Exam Results

This year, due to the Coronavirus pandemic, exams have been cancelled. In their stead, a set of rigorous grade calculation methods will ensure that post-16 students can progress further with their education and employment.