Supporting exams officers on results days 2020: GCSEs, AS and A Levels and Cambridge Nationals

Alison Leather - Customer Support Manager (South East)

This year, although the world may seem very different to the last time I was thinking about results days, we’ll still be issuing results and, in many ways, much of that will be ‘business as usual’. However, there will be a few differences as well as some additional information that we’ll be providing this year. So, in this blog, I wanted to provide a summary of what will be available and how our results documents can support your results days – whether you’re handing results out in person or sending them to students electronically.

Results will be issued to centres just after midnight on the following dates, known as restricted release:

• 12 August: AS and A Level, Core Maths, Extended Project and FSMQ
• 19 August: GCSE, Cambridge Nationals, Entry Level Certificate and Foundation/Higher Project

They can be given to students from 8am on results days (the day after restricted release).

EDI results files

We’ll be issuing EDI results files as normal just after midnight on restricted results release. To download the results files, you’ll need the latest version of the basedata, which has been updated to reflect the new 'results type indicator' within the files as marks will not be issued this year. If you need help with refreshing your basedata, Capita SIMS have put together a YouTube video to show you how.

We’ll be providing refreshed EDI results files weekly as usual until the end of October via Interchange. To access the updated files, log in to Interchange, hover over ‘Results’ in the left-hand menu and click on ‘EDI Results’ – if you do choose to use these updated files, they’ll overwrite any manual changes you’ve made to results.

Interchange results reports: broadsheet and statement of marks

Since we’re only issuing qualification grades this year (rather than unit grades or component marks), everything you need to give students their qualification results is contained within the EDI files. However, if you don’t use EDI files, you may find our results reports useful. This year we’re going to be providing the following reports:

• Results broadsheet – A PDF ‘matrix’ showing all candidates and their qualification grades.
• Candidate statement of marks – This ‘results slip’ is available as a PDF which can be printed out one statement per candidate or exported to a CSV file. Updated student-friendly examples of the statements of marks are available for A Levels, GCSEs and Cambridge Nationals.

To access the reports, log in to Interchange, hover over ‘Results’ and click on ‘Results documents’ in the left-hand menu.

Please be aware we won’t be publishing grade boundaries, examiners’ reports or mark schemes this year. Our results analysis service, Active Results, will not contain any June 2020 data but will be available from results days as usual, providing you with data from previous series.

Grade and rank order reports 2020

We’ve created some additional reports to help you understand how we’ve calculated your students’ results this year, and the data we have used in the calculation:

• The centre level data shows you the distribution of grades for your centre for each source of evidence used to calculate your students’ grades.
• For each candidate, you can see the centre assessment grade and rank order which you submitted, and the final calculated grade which will appear on their certificates.

We have produced examples of the reports for GCSEs and A Levels and Cambridge Nationals.

These reports will be available to download in a zip file on restricted results release dates. Each zip file will contain all the results for your centre in separate spreadsheets for each qualification. To access the reports, log in to Interchange, hover over and then click on ‘Grades and rank order reports 2020’ in the left-hand menu. You will need to have the Centre Administrator role in Interchange to view this area.

Giving students their centre assessment grades and rank orders

We know there have been lots of questions around giving students their centre assessment grades and rank orders. The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) has confirmed that centre assessment grades and rank orders are personal data under the Data Protection Act 2018. After results are issued, and subject to data protection and any other relevant legal considerations, you may provide the centre assessment grade and/or rank order information to your students. The ICO has now published updated guidance about this. It is for your Head of Centre (supported by the Data Protection Officer) to decide how to share information with students. You may find the following documents useful when planning how to manage the sharing of this information:

• The Exams Office – Student data – Sharing centre grades and rankings
• Confederation of School Trusts – CST Guidance: Releasing Centre Assessment Grades and arrangements for results days
• Association of School and College Leaders (ASCL) – Guidance for schools and colleges on results days in 2020
• Ofqual – Letter to Heads of centre – Summer 2020 results

However you manage results days this summer, I hope they go smoothly for you, your colleagues and your students.

About the author

Alison Leather - Customer Support Manager (South East)

Alison is Customer Support Manager for the South East region. The Customer Support Team provides support, training and guidance for centres administering OCR qualifications.

Alison has worked in education since 1995, as an Exams Manager in a college, a Centre Support Officer with the National Assessment Agency (NAA) and an Exams Officer in a secondary school – so she knows how challenging and rewarding it can be working in the exams office. Alison joined OCR as Customer Support Manager in 2007.