Review and priority review of marking

Find out how you can request a review or priority review of marking. This includes how to make a request, fees and deadlines.

There is no grade protection for review of marking. This means that students’ marks and subject grades may be lowered, confirmed or raised as a result. You must seek students’ consent before submitting a request.

What to expect

If you request a review or priority review of marking:

  • it includes a clerical re-check
  • you’ll receive a copy of the reviewed script as part of this service
  • a second examiner will review the paper/recording again to identify genuine marking errors or unreasonable marking
  • we’ll make sure all the marks are counted
  • a grade can go down as well as up.

You can request these services for individual units or components.

Priority review of marking

This is a faster service for students whose place at a university, or other higher education institution, depends on the outcome.

It’s only available for:

  • AS and A-level (including new AS specifications)
  • AQA Certificate Level 3
  • AQA Certificate Level 3 Applied General qualifications.

Fees

In the table below, you'll find the fees for each review of marking service.

What we charge will depend on the type of qualification and the outcome of the review.

Type of qualificationPost-results service Fee

GCSE, AQA Certificates (except Level 3), ELC, FCSE and Functional Skills

Review of marking

£40.35 per unit/component
AS, A-level, AQA Certificate Level 3 and  AQA Certificate Level 3 Applied General qualifications

Review of marking

£46.75 per unit/component

Priority review of marking (university place pending)

£55.60 per unit/component

Linear qualifications

When you submit components for review, please be aware that the timing of the requests will affect the fee charged.

If the subject grade changes, we do not charge for any components that:

  • are requested together (at the same time)
  • are requested separately but the linked components are still ‘In progress’ on Centre Services.

If you submit a component after a review of a linked component has been completed, you will be charged separately for each component. The fee for each component will depend on whether it does or does not change the overall subject grade.

Here are some examples to help explain the process:

ExampleOutcome of the reviewWhat you will be charged for

You submit Paper 1 and Paper 2 together, at the same time.

Paper 1 has no mark change but Paper 2 does have a mark change which results in a grade change.

You will not be charged for either review.

You submit Paper 1. Before the outcome is completed, you submit a review for Paper 2.

Paper 1 has no mark change but Paper 2 does have a mark change which results in a grade change.

You will not be charged for either review.

You submit Paper 1. After the outcome is completed, you then submit a review for Paper 2.

Paper 1 has no mark change but Paper 2 does have a mark change which results in a grade change.

You will be charged for Paper 1, as that had an outcome with no grade change.

You will not be charged for Paper 2, as that had an outcome with a grade change.

Modular qualifications

If the overall award grade changes, we do not charge for the review or any of the units.

If the overall award grade does not change – or the student does not combine the marks or other units they have sat in a previous exam series (aggregate):

  • we do not charge if a unit grade changes as a result of a review
  • if two units are reviewed, and only one unit grade changes, we will charge for the unit where the grade did not change.

How to make a request

You can only request a review of marking once for a paper.

To make a request, you'll need to:

  1. Fill in the student written consent form from JCQ’s post-results services page and keep it for six months after the outcome of the enquiry or subsequent appeal.
  2. Log in to Centre Services and select ‘Post-exams’ and ‘Post-results services’.
  3. Select ‘Review of marking’ either ‘Request by candidate’ or ‘Request by component’ and then select the service ‘Non priority (Plus reviewed script)’ or ‘Priority (Plus reviewed script)’.
  4. You’ll receive a copy of the reviewed script as part of the review or priority review of marking service.

Reviews for exams with multiple components

Previously, where question papers are split into multiple components with individual answer booklets you had to select each component to be included in a post-results review. You no longer need to do this and only have to select one of the components. This will then automatically include all components in the request.

Deadlines

Priority reviews of marking are not available in the November, January or March exam series.

Exam seriesPriority review: request deadlineReview: request deadline
January 2024
All
N/A4 April 2024
March 2024
Other
N/A9 May 2024
June 2024
All
22 August 202426 September 2024

How long it takes

  • up to 20 calendar days for a review of marking
  • up to 15 calendar days for a priority review of marking.

What happens next

We’ll email your school/college’s exams officer when your review outcome is available on Centre Services.

To comply with the new Ofqual requirements, if there has been a mark change on one or more of the questions on a reviewed paper, the reasons for review of marking decisions can be found on the copy of reviewed script. These can be accessed on the ‘View or cancel requests’ screen on Centre Services.