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We’ll send you all the materials you'll need for exam day either in a general stationery despatch or a confidential question paper despatch.
The following spreadsheets shows all the materials required and supplied for all examinations and assessments each series:
A few weeks before the exams start, we send out a stationery despatch containing the following items:
If you need any additional stationery such as script envelopes or continuation booklets, please request it from our Customer Support Centre. Please provide your name, centre name and what you need. Unit recording sheets (URS) can be downloaded from the qualification page.
We send the following materials via DHL in a confidential question paper despatch – see the key dates for the dates of each despatch.
Modified papers will be sent separately to the standard question papers.
We send a ‘despatch email’ for every question paper despatch – this contains the DHL tracking reference, which you can use to set up reminders and check who’s signed for your delivery.
When checking your confidential question papers despatch:
If you have any issues, please contact us.
All Cambridge Nationals question papers are a combined question paper and answer booklet: candidates answer the questions in the space provided on the question paper.
If a candidate runs out of space on the question paper, they should be given an OCR 4-page continuation booklet (OCR4) to continue their answers.
If further space is required then another 4-page continuation booklet should be used (and so on).
The candidate’s name, candidate number, centre number and unit code must be clearly written on all continuation booklets, which should be inserted inside their exam script.
We supply plastic script return envelopes which should always be used to send OCR scripts, even for single scripts – these are referred to as ‘CST259 M3 Gusset Envelope’ on the stationery listing and despatch notes.
As the adhesive on envelopes can deteriorate over time (and we supply new ones each series), please dispose of old envelopes.
You should not be able to reopen a sealed envelope without damaging it.
Question papers will be supplied in brown/gold question paper bags. We no longer send question papers in different coloured bags.
We cannot guarantee hardcopy question papers will be supplied where late entries have been made less than two weeks before the examination date. In these cases, we would make question papers available for you to download.
Modified papers are sent separately to the main question papers and, while they may arrive at the same time, in some cases, they may arrive a couple of days before the exam date.
In all cases, braille question paper materials will be sent separately – they’re sent via Royal Mail special delivery tracked service (and you won’t receive a despatch email for these papers).
Once we have sent attendance registers in the admin pack, we continue to send updates for any late candidate entries.
It’s important you keep and send the original attendance register together with the updates, as the updates do not replace the original attendance register.
Once we have sent labels in the 'admin pack', we continue to generate and despatch labels for any late changes.
Please destroy any old labels and use the new label for the despatch.
If you have a large entry for an examination we will provide additional labels (usually 1 extra for every 40 scripts) to make sure that script packets are not overfilled.
The labels you receive are based on your geographical location and the qualification type:
If you’ve not received labels a week before an exam, please contact our customer support centre to request replacements.
If you still haven’t received your labels within three days of an exam, you can request one emergency replacement label from Interchange.
To do this, log in to Interchange, hover over ‘Resources and materials’ in the left-hand menu, click on ‘Emergency exam labels’.
Requests should be processed within 12 hours.
Click on ‘Examiner address labels’ and follow the on-screen instructions. If possible, the label should be printed onto yellow label stationery. Please note that only one label can be generated and it is important you only use it once (do not produce duplicate copies).
If you need more than one label to despatch the scripts for an examination, please call our customer support centre and we will arrange for the originals to be re-sent.
Click on ‘Examiner and coursework moderator address list’ and follow the on-screen instructions. Within this list you will be able to find the examination together with the address where the work is to be sent. Add these details to your own label.
Where plastic packaging is used, this is LDPE (4). Your local authority will be able to provide details of the recycling availability in your area.