Exams Administration

Information and resources for exams officers to plan ahead and stay on track throughout the whole exams lifecycle, from entries to results day.

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Exam papers and stationery

Find out about what we'll send you and when, what you need to provide and how to order extra exam stationery.

What we'll send you

We'll send you exam materials throughout the year. There are three types of exam materials we'll send to you:

Exam stationery and forms, which we'll send based on your entries.
Early question papers that we send or make available to you before exam day (sometimes called preliminary or pre-release).
Exam day question papers and answer booklets.

Find out how to order extra exam stationery

When we'll send it

The table below shows everything we'll send you and when we will send it. For early exam materials, you can also use our early question paper dates.

Summer 2026 series

Level	Item	Exam / pre-release issue date	When we'll send it to you	Initially sent using estimated entries?
GCSE and GCSE	Question paper pack 2 - Jan / Feb issue Art & Design pre-lim	2 January - 1 February 2026	Early-Mid December (before Christmas break)	Yes
GCSE	Question paper pack 3 - GCSE Geography prelim material	19 March 2026	Early March	Yes
GCE and GCSE	Question paper pack 4 - MFL speaking tests	7 April - 22 May 2026	Mid-March (before Easter)	No
GCE and GCSE	Attendance records (non-timetabled components)		Mid-March (before Easter)	No
GCE	Exam use English anthologies		Late March - Late April (around Easter)	No
GCE and GCSE	Stationery: includes additional answer books (SLAB4), graph paper, S1 script sacks and S3 coursework sacks		Late March - Late April (around Easter)	No
GCE and GCSE	Blank NLL Labels		Mid – Late April
GCE	Attendance records (All timetabled components)		Late April	No
GCSE	Attendance records (May components)	07 – 22 May 2026	Late April	No
GCE and GCSE	Question paper pack 5 - Summer exam papers	7 - 18 May 2026	Mid - Late April (after Easter)	No
GCE and GCSE	Question paper pack 6 - Summer exam papers	19 May - 1 June 2026	Late April (after Easter)	No
GCE and GCSE	Question paper pack 7 - Summer exam papers	2 - 5 June 2026	Late April - Early May	No
GCSE	Attendance records (June components)	01 – 19 June 2026	Early - Mid May	No
GCE and GCSE	Question paper pack 8 - Summer exam papers	8 - 10 June 2026	Mid - Late May	No
GCE and GCSE	Question paper pack 9 - Summer exam papers	11 - 18 June 2026	Early June (after half term)	No

What to do if exam materials have been damaged or opened during transit

You must let us know immediately if:

A parcel or one of the packets has been opened during transit and therefore there may have been a breach of security.
Material has been significantly damaged in transit or upon opening.

You can get in touch with us by sending an email to irregularities-n@aqa.org.uk

How to store exam materials

You must have a secure storage area where you can store confidential exam materials such as question papers, answer booklets and supplementary booklets and sheets. See the requirements in JCQ's instructions for conducting examinations

What you need to provide

You'll need to provide certain stationery to students on exam day. This is in addition to what we'll send you.

It's also important that you check the instructions in your question paper pack to make sure that you're providing everything students need. You can find out more about this in the stationery summary lists on Centre Services

How to create an attendance register

We'll send attendance registers to you before the exams. However, if you're missing one for any reason then you can create your own on Centre Services.

To create an attendance register, you’ll need to:

Log into Centre Services
Go to the Pre-entries tab in the menu.
Then Entries > Current entry reports.
Select an academic year and series.
Select Search.
Select Subject reports.
Select a specification and component – make sure entry code is 'all'.
Select Run report.

You'll then be able to download your attendance register.