Exams Officer Update September 2025

Welcome to our Autumn 2025 newsletter

Welcome to the first edition of the Exams Officer update for the 2025 academic year. We’re excited to get started and are ready to go after the summer series.
In this month’s Exams Officer Update, you’ll find information and guidance on:

• November 2025 exam series
• Network events
• January 2026 exam series
• Student Advisory Group – recruitment for 2025/26
• Dates for your diary

Kind regards

Gemma Miller
Exams Officer Engagement Manager

November 2025 exam series

The deadline for making entries for the November series is Saturday 4 October 2025. If you need to enter any new learners after this date, their entries will be charged a late entry fee. See our entries pages for more information.

Please make sure you use the student’s original UCI to make your entries, especially if you’re carrying forward an NEA or endorsement, which will be linked to the original UCI. If you use a new UCI, this could lead to delays when processing your entry file. Using the student’s original UCI will also help to reduce the risk of problems when importing exam results.

If you’re entering for the first time in this series and need some help you can also book onto one of our Entries webinars, with live Q&A by going to our website. There are webinars for new exams officers with detailed instructions as well as a shorter webinar for experienced exams officers providing a refresher to choose from. All of our webinars are completely free to attend. They are delivered by members of the Exams Officer Engagement team – all former Exams Officers – and are supported by AQA experts.

New Medical Mobile phone help and guidance for centres

Many of you have asked us for more guidance on what to do when a student needs a mobile phone in the exam room to help with a medical condition. With help from our special requirements team and experts at Diabetes UK we’ve produced this guidance to help you – you can also find it on our Access Arrangements page.

November series eligibility

There’s an age restriction for entering learners for GCSE English Language and GCSE Maths in the November exam series. Only learners who were at least 16 years old on 31 August 2025 can be entered.

If any learners arrive to sit exams for these qualifications without an entry, you must make sure they meet the age restrictions before allowing them to sit the exam.

November 2025 non-exam assessment (NEA)

You'll be able to submit NEA marks for November 2025 using 'Centre mark submissions' (CMS) on Centre Services from Friday 10 October 2025. You can find information about submitting NEA marks and grades on our website, or you can watch our Centre Mark Submissions in Centre Services YouTube playlist.

The deadline to submit marks, grades or carry forward requests is Wednesday 5 November 2025.

Carry forward of marks

GCSE English Language learners can carry forward their Spoken Language Endorsement grades – even if they sat the original exam with a different exam board.

If a learner has a previous grade of ‘Pass’ or better, and they have not made a new attempt at the endorsement, it is important to submit a carry forward request for them. The endorsement grade (including ‘Not Classified’) appears on a learner’s certificate, so it is important that we capture their best effort.

You'll need to use the learner's UCI/ULN from the previous attempt, otherwise we’ll not be able to process the request.

NEA adviser

If you need any support, your NEA adviser is available to help.

For the following subjects, NEA advice requests should be sent to adviceadmin@aqa.org.uk

• GCSE Chinese (8673)
• GCSE Citizenship (8100)
• FCSE French (8958)
• FCSE German (8968)
• FCSE Chinese (8973)
• FCSE Spanish (8998)

For all other NEA subjects, you can find your adviser’s contact details using the following steps:

• log into Centre Services
• select ‘Pre-exams’
• click on ‘NEA Advisers’.

If you do not have an assigned adviser, please get in touch.

Please be aware that contact details are confidential and must not be shared with third parties including students and on social media. You can find more information in our privacy notice.

Network events

Are you part of an Exams Officer network?

If you’d like to be part of an Exams Officer network, or if you already manage or attend an independent network and would like us to join you, please complete our short form with your details and a member of the team will get back to you.

We know that there are already existing network events where our Exams Officer communities regularly meet. As it’s not always possible for us to attend these, we’re keen to establish new networks, to make sure you have a place to give your feedback, receive exam board updates and, most importantly, share best practice.

Alternative provisions network

We’ve listened to your feedback and now offer online network meetings specifically for alternative provision centres, such as hospital schools, prisons, and pupil referral units, as we recognise that these centres need bespoke support.

The events are held online once a term, with the Exams Officer Engagement team. They cover important operational updates as well as the opportunity to share practice with similar provisions.

If you're an Exams Officer from an alternative provision centre, and would be interested in joining us at our next meeting, please email us at examsofficerengagement@aqa.org.uk.

Do you have a new Exams Officer?

If you have a new Exams Officer in your centre, let's get them setup on our systems. This means they’ll be able to access the relevant materials, start receiving our onboarding emails and our valuable monthly Exams Officer updates.

Our website gives you the information you need to request any necessary changes.

Training for new Exams Officers

We look forward to welcoming you to one of our ‘New to Exams’ training events, which you can join either in person in Manchester, Guildford or Milton Keynes, or online across four sessions. All of our training is delivered by members of the Exams Officer Engagement team, who are former Exams Officers, and is completely free.

Our training dates for the first term are now available to book on our website.

January 2026 exam series

You can now make entries for the January 2026 exam series (ELC and Applied Generals) until Tuesday 21 October 2025. If you need to enter any new learners after this date, their entries will be charged a late entry fee.

Student Advisory Group – recruitment for 2025/26

We’re looking for learners to join our Student Advisory Group to help us make key decisions about the future of exams. We’d love to hear from learners who’ve completed AQA specification GCSEs since 2024, as well as from those taking AQA AS and A-levels. We also really want to hear from students taking our vocational qualifications, or vocational qualifications with any other exam board, as long as they have sat at least one AQA qualification.

Since the Student Advisory group began they’ve; represented the student voice each year at the Parliamentary Youth Reception, shared their views at the Curriculum and Assessment Youth Shadow Panel, fed into our Curriculum and Assessment call for evidence response, given insights on AI in the Classroom at the 2025 Festival of Education, helped with reviewing books for our English literature set texts list, and much more.

So, if you know any learners who you think would be interested, please pass this on. Full details of the role and how to apply can be found on our website. Applications close at 5.00pm on Monday 22 September 2025.

Dates for your diary

20 Sept

Last date to request modified papers for November 2025 series

25 Sept

Last date for June 2025 Review of Results

25 Sept

Last date to submit late special consideration requests for June 2025

01 Oct

Last date to submit form JCQ/CCA (centre consortium arrangements) for November 2025 series internally-assessed work

03 Oct

Earliest date for confidential disposal of unwanted Functional Skills scripts for March 2025

04 Oct

Last date to request modified papers for January 2026

04 Oct

Last date to request transferred candidate arrangements for November 2025 series

04 Oct

Closing date for November 2025 series entries – GCSE English Language, GCSE Mathematics and Level 3 Extended Project entries

05 Oct

Entries submitted on and after this date for November 2025 series will be charged a ‘late entry fee’ – GCSE English Language, GCSE Mathematics and Level 3 Extended Project entries

10 Oct

Last date to submit summer estimated entries (covers March 2026 and June 2026) for a small number of subjects

31 Oct

Last date to request return copies of scripts to support teaching and learning – Access to Scripts service June 2025.