We collect personal information from your school or exam centre, such as:

• Your name, date of birth, candidate number, UCI (Unique Candidate Identifier) number and gender
• Exam details: Subjects, grades, qualification type, school or exam centre
• Messages: Emails or messages you send us
• Safeguarding concerns, only if you share something that means action is needed to protect you or others from harm.
• Audio/video recordings – only if required in a subject, and only for assessment

We collect data when you register at a school or exam centre, take part in exams, surveys, or training, use our websites, apps, or services, contact us via email, phone, or social media, or interact with our cookies or digital platforms.

We use your data to:

• Set and mark exams and keep records of your results
• Improve our qualifications and services
• Support equality and inclusion
• Gather feedback from students
• Keep exams secure and prevent cheating/ malpractice
• Meet legal and regulatory requirements
• Help with safeguarding and law enforcement if needed

We keep your data only as long as needed for the purpose it was collected. Retention periods are regularly reviewed and follow legal and regulatory requirements.

Your data is stored securely using firewalls and access controls. Only authorised staff can access it, and third parties must follow strict security rules.

Your exam results may be shared with UCAS or International Universities to support university applications, even if you haven’t applied yet. Exam boards may also share data to ensure fairness and consistency across qualifications.

We work with trusted organisations to help deliver exams and services. They must follow strict rules, apply our policy regarding data sharing and can only use your data for specific tasks we approve.

Some data may be transferred outside the UK via AQA for marking or technical support. We apply strict safeguards to protect your data during these transfers.

In rare cases, we may use automated systems to estimate grades (e.g. if you miss an exam). Your school or exam centre will be notified if this is the case, and you have the right to ask for a human review and to challenge the decision.

We may use AI in some services (e.g. transcribing meetings). We follow ethical guidelines to avoid bias and ensure fairness.

You have the right to access your data, correct mistakes, ask for deletion (in some cases), object to how your data is used, and request a review of automated decisions.

You will be asked to read and sign your consent before a Post results request can be submitted to us. Go Further Award winners will also be asked to consent for their achievements to be published to the 51���� website.

If you’re unhappy with how your data is handled, you can contact 51���� directly by email at info@oxfordaqa.com or complain to the UK Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO).

We process your data based on consent (when you give it), legal obligations, public interest, and legitimate interests (e.g. improving education).

If you have queries relating to this policy, we can be reached by email at info@oxfordaqa.com.

Last reviewed March 2026.

As the Exams Officer Support Advisor, my role is to be your direct link into 51����. I’m here to represent your voice within 51���� and to ensure you have the practical support, resources and insights you need to deliver our qualifications with confidence.  ��

Having worked closely with Exams Officers for many years, I understand the complexities of your role and the value of clear communication, timely updates and peer support.  ��

• Engagement and Collaboration with Exams Officers across all 51���� schools

• Building and supporting Exams Officer networks in different regions ��

• Development and Support – Providing guidance, updates and best practices ��

 ��

What is a network event and why are they valuable to you as an Exams Officer? ��

Network events give Exams Officers an opportunity to: ��

• Connect with fellow Exams Officers in your region ��

• Share best practice and problem solve common challenges ��

• Get updates directly from 51���� ��

• Raise feedback in a supportive, collaborative space 

 ��

If you’re already part of an Exams Officer network or would like help setting one up in your region – I’d love to hear from you. I’m also happy to attend your existing network meetings online to support discussions or share updates. You can reach me directly at trooney@aqa.org.uk �į�į��

Our 51���� Customer Service team is still your first point of contact for day-to-day enquiries by phone, email or live chat. But if you’re looking to connect more with 51����, influence how we support Exams Officers, or grow your local network, I’m here to help. ��

Let’s make sure you feel confident and supported – every exam series. 

We have listened to feedback from teachers, and have revised our specifications for International GCSE English Literature, and International AS and A-level Business. Second editions of the Student Books from Oxford University Press will be available in time for first teaching.��
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The revised specification for International GCSE English Literature now includes a refreshed range of set texts, poetry and short story anthologies for students to study.��
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The revised specification for International AS and A-level Business features separate topics for each of the A2 papers, and a simplified structure, with all A2 questions based on case studies.��

Download this handy flowchart for information on how to make a decision on what post-results service may be most suitable.

Access to scripts services are free for both priority copy and standard copy of marked paper services. We will contact your centre’s Exams Officer when the marked paper is available on Centre Services.

Scripts will show the student’s written answers and the examiner’s comments and marks.

If you’re concerned that the examiner has made a mistake marking your student’s script, you can consider requesting a review of marking. If a review of marking leads to an overall subject grade change, we won’t charge for it.

Schools can request access to scripts for a standard copy of marked exam paper to use for your teaching and learning.

Deadline: 31 October 2025 (all levels)

Schools should receive copies within one week of most requests, but please allow up to six weeks of the post-results request being made to receive copies.

Tip: if a university or college place is pending, go straight to priority review of marking.

This is a photocopy of the marked exam paper that you can use to decide whether to request a review of marking or clerical re-check.

Deadlines:

• 28 August 2025 (International AS/A-level)
• 4 September 2025 (International GCSE)

These will be completed within a week of the request being made.

A clerical re-check of a marked paper, we will make sure we marked all the pages, we counted all the marks and the result matches the marks on the paper.

Deadline: 25 September 2025

This will be completed within 10 calendar days following the request being received.

A review of marking includes a clerical re-check, a copy of the reviewed script, a review of the paper or recording by a second examiner to identify genuine marking errors or unreasonable marking and we will make sure all the marks are counted.

Deadline: 25 September 2025

This will be completed within 20 calendar days following the request being received.

Available to International AS/A-level students.

A priority review of marking includes the same as a review of marking (see above).

Deadline: 21 August 2025

This will be completed within 15 calendar days following the request being received.

If your school internally assessed non-exam assessment (NEA) mark was adjusted during moderation, request a moderation review on Centre Services to check the assessment criteria was applied fairly, reliably and consistently to the standard.

• Moderation reviews are only available for whole NEA subject units, not individual students.
• Learners’ marks may be lowered, but the published grade will not be lowered for the current exam series.
• Lowered marks may be carried forward to future certification.
• We’ll email exams officers when your review of moderation outcome is available to view on Centre Services. The outcome letter will give details of any mark/grade adjustments. The Review of Moderation feedback report will be sent to the Exams Officer’s email address when the outcome is available.

If the school mark is reinstated as a result of a moderation review, we won’t charge for it.

Private candidates can request this service, but only for certain specifications and when the work has been assessed by a moderator.

Deadline: 25 September 2025

This will be completed within 35 calendar days from when the moderator receives the original sample from the school.

Featuring updated graphs and visualisations for quicker and easier trend analysis, Data Insights enables you to dig deeper into your learners’ results.��Find out more on our Teacher Support page.

For more information on post-results services, please click here.

Download guidance on post-results services here.

Download our handy flowchart��to help you navigate your post-results needs.

• Project Q adds transparency and places you firmly in control
• Learners feel empowered, project managing their own work to a successful outcome
• Supervisors gain at-a-glance updates across the cohort helping to support learning and progress more effectively

Project Q provides a solution to the workflow challenges of the International EPQ, allowing easy management of the process from start to finish. Paper forms and emails are replaced by a central system, where the whole project is managed online in real time.

Centre Co-ordinators create courses and Supervisor groups via the easy-to-use web-based portal. Students then complete their online Production log as they progress through the project. Supervisors monitor student progress then review and feedback. Sections are signed off and locked down as they are completed. A timeline shows important milestones throughout the project, with reminders.

Once the project is done, students export the log into the required exam board format to complete their International EPQ submission.

With over 100,000 users around the world, and an impressive 98% renewal rate, Project Q is a cost-effective way to free up valuable staff and student time.

Your free trial for 2025-26 will allow you to explore this complete student management system and see for yourself how it can make the management of EPQ project qualifications easy.

We also offer regular online and face-to-face training sessions as part of our commitment to ensuring 51���� educators have what they need to deliver 51���� qualifications successfully. Visit our training and events pages for more information and to book online.

Designed especially for international schools, this educational journey – spanning from Early Years to O��ڴǰ��崡�ϴ�’s International AS/A-levels – ignites a joy of learning and promotes a culture of wellbeing that will prove essential for connecting the learners of today with a brighter future.��

These students excelled in their subject categories during the May/June 2024 exam series. A record number of students, from 98 schools and 19 countries, received awards for being the top achievers in their country, region or the world. The entire team at 51���� extends our��warmest congratulations to these exceptional individuals; we encourage you to continue to��share your success stories with us.��

The achievements of these students, however, would not be possible without the��efforts of their fantastic teachers. Teaching can be a��challenging profession and �ٳ󲹳�’s why we ensure that our teaching support offer is robust and encourages both professional development and a focus on wellbeing. Over the last 12 months, 51���� has:��

• hosted over 94 hours of webinars��
• ran 14 Senior Associate Clinics across the world��
• held 9 51���� and Oxford International Programme conferences��
• attended or organised 38 other face-to-face events��

Wellbeing��is a key strand of the Oxford International Programme and flows throughout it. As part of its launch, Jamie Kirkaldy, Head of Teaching and Learning Support, hosted a webinar detailing his top tips for putting teacher wellbeing at the heart of positive teaching. You can read Jamie’s thoughts and top tips on our blog.��

The speakers at our conferences in Egypt, Dubai, Thailand and China discussed in-depth the impacts of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and other digital technologies in education. Teachers can use technology to their advantage, for example to cultivate key 21st-century skills or��to give an edge to their leadership in education. Our commitment to guiding and supporting wider discussions on the issues that matter will continue to drive us in 2025.��

Looking forward to next year, we already have lots of support in place for teachers to help them give their students the best chance of success. In January, �ɱ�’l�� be holding 51���� conferences across three cities in Pakistan. January also marks the start of our new Professional Development course, , which offers teachers practical insights into nurturing future-ready skills into all areas of teaching – from lesson planning to assessment feedback. After that, our annual support cycle will start up again with the beginning of our Prepare to Teach series in February – and there is much more to come.��

For now, though, I’d like to thank all the teachers, staff and students at our 51���� schools for your hard work this year. It’s been an inspiration to see how much effort you have put in, and a pleasure to meet some of you on my visits across the world. I hope to engage with even more of you next year.��

In 2019, following a three-year research project, Oxford University’s Centre for Educational Assessment and Ofqual, the UK exams regulator, published a joint report into the advantages and disadvantages of linear and modular GCSEs. It was based on a systematic review of existing literature, analysis of student outcomes and interviews with stakeholders. Primed by the switch from modular to linear GCSEs in the UK in 2007, the researchers were interested to see if the change had impacted on student outcomes, particularly in the key subjects of English, Maths and Science.��

Their findings make for fascinating reading. Most notably, the report drew an important distinction between the way linear exams favour longer-term retention of information and deep learning, whereas modular exams allow for regular feedback on student performance. Both approaches, therefore, have benefits for students. Although, it appears that these benefits largely cancel each other out in terms of student performance, regardless of the student’s gender, socioeconomic demographic, mother tongue or individual educational needs. Everyone did just as well in terms of their final grades.����

So, if student outcomes are unchanged, what might lead schools to prefer one route over the other?��

Research found that key reasons were stress, long-term impact, teaching time and logistics. Those surveyed identified that GCSE students didn’t yet possess the maturity to handle the scrutiny of a modular system, and some exams came too early in their academic and emotional development. As a result, students felt under enormous pressure at too early a stage in the course, before they were fully confident with the subject matter and the skills the exam required. This is especially true given that GCSE students typically take far more subjects than at A-level, meaning they were swiftly becoming overwhelmed and anxious.��

Schools were becoming worried about the impact on student wellbeing, in both the short- and long-term. While students could perform well in the modular exams, it was harming their perception of school and the very concept of learning. For them, school seemed to reflect an ‘exam factory’, where everything was built around the short-term retention of information and one eye always on the next assessment. Once an exam was finished, that knowledge was ‘forgotten’ and attention would turn to��the next unit of work. This was particularly noticeable when students progressed into A-level – which is always a challenging step up – and lacked the strong knowledge and skills base needed to make that transition with confidence.��

Teachers also felt the strain of constantly preparing students for assessments. The loss of classroom time, as multiple exam windows interrupted teaching, meant learning became disjointed and curriculum plans had to be condensed into fewer and fewer weeks.��

As GCSEs shift focus away from knowledge-based curricula towards a more skills-focused approach, these concerns become increasingly true. Short-term memorisation of key facts can work if you are preparing for a rote-learning style assessment, but GCSEs now prioritise skills and applying knowledge. This has been the trend since the UK education reforms in 2015 and requires time for students to develop these aptitudes.��

Why, then, is this not the case for students preparing for AS and A-level assessments?��

The environment and ethos of A-level study is very different from GCSEs. Students are older, more mature, and are only studying subjects they have chosen, so automatically are more engaged. Furthermore, they are aware that their university applications are based primarily on their A-level performance, so are far more invested. By studying significantly fewer subjects than at GCSE, modularity at A-level doesn’t exponentially multiply the exam load to the same degree.��

As such, teachers consistently say they prefer modular A-levels, as it gives students a flexible framework to approach their studies. Given the higher subject content demand that A-levels present, students find breaking the learning down into individual units far more manageable. It also lowers the pressure on exam performance, as they know one bad day or one mistake isn’t going to undermine their chances of a good overall grade, as they can re-sit individual exams where things didn’t go to plan. It even allows students the option of not taking their AS results forward to A-level, they can ‘cash in’ their AS assessments and receive an AS-level qualification. They then have the option of reducing the number of subjects they are studying at A2 level to prioritise the subjects they want to take forward.��

When 51���� launched our international qualifications, we wanted to be sure that we offered an assessment structure that was right for all students. We have always aligned closely with the UK on key fundamentals: we made sure our qualifications replicated the progressive skills-based approach and adopted 9-1��grades at GCSE so exceptional students could access the prestigious Grade 9. As an international exam board, though, we could also make decisions that were right for our students without being confined by the UK regulator.��

Our decision to split our assessment structure – with linear GCSEs (in line with the UK) but modular A-levels (the UK reverted to linear A-levels in 2015) – reflected this. We felt, and teachers generally agree, that the two systems work best for students at different stages of their educational journey. Our linear GCSEs are designed to give students time to develop their skills without the stress of multiple exam series, while giving teachers the maximum amount of classroom time. Modular A-levels, on the other hand, provide an effective balance between structure and flexibility, meaning students can compartmentalise their learning and exam preparation, while working with the safety net of knowing they can re-sit individual units.��

We are delighted with the positive response we have had from teachers on this approach, with many expressing their belief that it has benefitted them and their students. As with our syllabus content, we will continue to ensure we align with the needs of our 51���� schools, staff and students, when it comes to assessment design.��

On 15 June I had the pleasure of presenting a skill development model to the brilliant leaders of Sri Lanka’s international schools at the 9th TISSL Conference. This model – the��Pentagon of Skill Practice��– is what I wish to share with you now.

As indicated by the model’s name, there are five key steps in learning and developing skills, which I will briefly summarise alongside a focus on creativity.

Creativity is a key aspect of our human wellbeing, yet it is also a skill that can be stifled or even forgotten in outdated, didactic teaching methods. So, how do we foster and protect creativity (and other skills) in our classrooms?

Learning or developing a skill requires space in many forms – mental, emotional, time and physical space. We must make time for this process, even if this may mean taking time away from subject content.

Let’s look at creativity. Creating, coming up with new ideas, takes time. It takes emotional and physical space for trials and errors. It takes recovery time as we try and assess what we have created. Think about this in terms of a different skill: physical fitness. You will not get stronger by doing a 15-second workout once a month. You will, however, become fitter if you spend time every day moving and ensuring you take time to rest and recover.

It’s the same for our students. If we want them to develop a skill, we need to give them the space and time they need to do this.

It’s easy to think of skills as complete wholes, but we need to consider their components to help students master them. If we simply tell our students to ‘be creative’ the goal is too broad and too intimidating. Instead, we need smaller steps.

For instance, take something that is already well-known and add something to it – such as adding a song or changing the goal of one character in a popular story. Or use the surroundings to spark imagination: take a walk and describe something you can see with 10 adjectives, and then 10 verbs that could apply to that object. While you can jump, dance or run on a mountain, or see, smell or touch one, you can slowly get more adventurous – you can scream at, speak or even recite to a mountain. Get silly. Have fun.

Skill development requires practice, especially given skills are context specific. So, while a student may be a creative writer, they may feel less confident approaching speaking or a maths problem in a creative way.

Our students need multiple contexts in which to practice being creative – have them imagine the lives of people at different times in history, attempt to find different ways of solving maths problems or challenge them to express themselves through different art forms. It can be as simple as having them devise a new way to greet you every morning or explain how to make a cup of tea.

Feedback can be food or poison for skill development. A young person being creative can be encouraged to continue, expand their attempts and try something different. Or they can be embarrassed and discouraged from trying.

Our words, demeanour and attitudes have great power, which means we carry great responsibility when guiding students on nurturing different skills. It is our job as educators to find kind and helpful ways to encourage, support and inspire growth.

Seeing others attempt, practice and master a skill is inspiring. I remember growing up watching the Romanian gymnast Nadia Comăneci and deciding��that��was what I wanted to be. I never became an Olympic gymnast, but she inspired me to spend countless hours moving, which ended up being great for my health.

Models give us ideas on how we might try to do things, but also the process of��watching them try��gives us encouragement to realise we can also try, not succeed, and still try again. This is one of the most important roles teachers play. We model skill learning, showing our students every day how we practice our skills – by trying new things, working to communicate with them, listening attentively, assessing information critically and, above all, being kind to ourselves in the process.