Guidance

Entries by year group: guide to the data submission process

Updated 21 September 2026

Applies to England

Introduction

In order to fulfil our regulatory and accreditation functions as set out in the Apprenticeships, Skills, Children and Learning Act 2009, we require awarding organisations to provide the following data for regulated qualifications.

This data will be used to undertake our regulatory activities and to fulfil our responsibility as a government department. In particular, this data is used in the publication of the following Official Statistics reports: Provisional entries for GCSE, AS and A level summer series and Provisional November exam entries: GCSE English language and mathematics.

Northern Ireland data will also be shared with CCEA regulation to fulfil their own purposes as a regulator.

What data will be collected?

Data should relate to the number of cash-in entries by year group.

For level 2 qualifications, we expect year 9- to year 13+. For level 3 qualifications, we expect year 11- to year 14+.

Qualifications in scope

The following qualification types are in scope of this collection:

• GCSE (including short course)
• AS
• A level
• Project level 3
• Advanced Extension Award (AEA)

This template does require data on endorsements.

For the November series collection, only GCSE English and GCSE mathematics are in scope.

Countries in scope

Data should be included for all students in centres in:

• England
• Northern Ireland (on behalf of CCEA regulation)
• Wales
• Non UK
• Other UK regions

Time period in scope

Data is collected at multiple points during the year for the June and November exam series. For detail on the exam series in scope of each return please see the reporting schedule.

When data will be collected

Data will be collected according to the reporting schedule which is updated regularly.

How to submit your data

Your data must be submitted to us in CSV format. Please refer to the Connecting to Ofqual’s data portal and uploading data document for more information. If you need to ask us about a data submission, please contact the Data Services team.

Please do not send your data files via email or via Contact the Regulator in the Portal.

Uploaded data

Once files have been successfully uploaded, the data will be validated against a set of validation rules.

If validation is successful, the data is automatically transferred into Ofqual’s internal systems and you will receive email confirmation. If the file is unsuccessful at any stage of validation you will receive an email with details of the validation failure. Please correct your file and resubmit it.

The specific validation rules which are in place for this template are detailed in the ‘validation rules’ and ‘file format’ sections below.

Amendments to data

Errors or omissions in the data

Once the data has been successfully uploaded, it will be checked by Ofqual staff. If an error or omission is spotted, the data may be queried, and you may be requested to resubmit it. We will need to reject your existing submission ahead of a resubmission.

If you find an error or omission after you’ve had a successful upload, please notify data services by email. We need to reject the existing submission before you can upload a new file.

If you wish to see your latest submission of a data return, for example to check the submission if it has been queried, please know it is available to download in the data portal.

Scheduled revisions of data

Each submission of this data is intended to show a snapshot in time. Therefore, there will be no resubmissions required to reflect any further updates to the data already submitted, unless an error or omission is spotted.

General completion guidelines

1. Numeric values must not have any formatting.
2. All fields are mandatory unless otherwise specified.
3. Submit 1 row of data per specification per year group per centre type per Country.
4. For England and Wales, cash-in entries by year group are based on age as of 31 August. For Northern Ireland they are based on age as of 30 June. For example, students in England and Wales taking summer exams who turn 16 by 31 August of that exam year should be considered Year 11.
5. Data for AS and A level double awards (for Northern Ireland) should be recorded against “AS Dbl” and “A level Dbl” respectively in the Qualfiication field.
6. Data for all specification codes in scope of the collection should be provided, even if it is a nil return.
7. Classify centre type as defined in appendix A.

File format

The file must be CSV format and the first row must be headers as displayed in the ‘Name’ column of the table below. The subsequent rows must have the values of the data to be reported which must match the format and validation rules below.

Name	Description	Position	Description of Regular Expression	Validation Regular Expression
ReportingDate	Date the file was due to be submitted to Ofqual regardless of when it was actually uploaded (this date will be made available by Ofqual)	1	The date in the following format: year (4 digits), a dash, month (2 digits), a dash, day-of-month (2 digits) Format accepted yyyy-mm-dd	^(20)\d\d[-](0[1-9]|1[012])[-](0[1-9]|[12][0-9]|3[01])$
ExamSeries	The exam series data relates to, for example June 2024	2	Full month name of exam series and year.	^(June|November)([ ][0-9][0-9][0-9][0-9])$
AwardingOrganisation	Awarding organisation acronym as it appears in Ofqual’s Register of Regulated organisations	3	1 to 150 characters accepted	^.{1,150}$
QAN	The unique identifier for the qualification as it appears in Ofqual’s Register of Regulated qualifications, for example, 123/1234/1	4	Valid qualification number. 10 characters accepted	^.{10}$
QualificationLevel	Type of qualification	5	Accepted values: • GCSE • AS • A level • AEA • Project L3	^(GCSE|AS|A level|AEA|Project L3)$
SpecificationCode	Specification code, also known as Subject Award Code and Cash-in Code.	6	1 to 7 characters accepted.	^.{1,7}$
SpecificationTitle	Specification title, also known as subject title.	7	1 to 150 characters accepted.	^.{1,150}$
FullOrShortCourse	To indicate if subject is full or short course for applicable qualifications, for example GCSE. -2 accepted where not applicable, for example A level.	8	Accepted values: • Full course • Short course -2 accepted where not applicable, for example A level.	^(Full Course|Short Course|-2)$
RouteOfAssessment	To indicate if assessment is modular or linear for applicable qualifications, for example GCSE. -2 accepted where not applicable, for example A level.	9	Accepted values: • Modular • Linear -2 accepted where not applicable, for example A level.	^(Modular|Linear|-2)$
QualificationStatus	To indicate if subject is reformed or legacy, for applicable qualifications	10	Accepted values: • Reformed • Legacy	^(Reformed|Legacy)$
Country	The country the data relates to	11	Accepted values: • England • Wales • Northern Ireland • Non UK • Other UK regions -2 accepted where a specification has a nil return.	^(England|Wales|Northern Ireland|Non UK|Other UK regions|-2)$
YearGroup	To indicate the year group of entry	12	Accepted values for GCSE: • Year 9- • Year 10 • Year 11 • Year 12 • Year 13+ Accepted values for AS, A level, Project L3 and AEA: • Year 11- • Year 12 • Year 13 • Year 14+ -2 accepted where the year group is unknown or where a specification has a nil return.	^(Year 9-|Year 10|Year 11|Year 12|Year 13\+|Year 11-|Year 13|Year 14\+|-2)$
CentreType	To indicate centre type based on centre codes.	13	A numeric value between 1 and 15 accepted. See appendix A for centre type codes. -2 accepted where a specification has a nil return.	^(?:-2|\d{1,15})$
NumberOfCandidates	To indicate number of students in specified entry	14	Up to 8-digit integer accepted	^\d{1,8}$

Validation rules

A data submission is only considered complete once it has successfully passed the validation rules.

If the file is unsuccessful at any stage of validation you will receive an email with details of the validation failure. Please correct your file and resubmit it. A file may be successful but with warnings. Warnings will not cause failure in the validation process but will highlight entries which may need to be checked. You will receive an email with details of the warning in an attached “Data Validation Warnings Report”. If you receive this, please review the report and contact Ofqual Data Services should the data require any amendment.

The validation rules for this template check that each field is correctly formatted. The correct formatting of the fields are detailed in the ‘file format’ section. Failure to format the fields in line with the validation regular expression will result in unsuccessful validation. Additional validation rules are also in place for this template and may include cross-referencing with other templates. These validation rules along with whether they result in failure or a warning are detailed in the following table.

Validation rule	Result if not met
‘ReportingDate’ matches date the file was due to be submitted to Ofqual regardless of when it was actually uploaded (this date will be made available by Ofqual)	Fail and rejected
QAN is a valid qualification number	Fail and rejected
QualificationLevel and QAN match Ofqual register	Fail and rejected
Specification Code is valid for the given awarding organisation and year	Fail and rejected
FullOrShortCourse corresponds to QualificationLevel	Fail and rejected
YearGroup corresponds to QualificationLevel	Fail and rejected

Appendix A: Accepted centre codes for CentreType field

Centre Type	Description
1	Secondary Comprehensive or Middle	Community, Voluntary Aided or Controlled
2	Secondary Selective	Community, Voluntary Aided or Controlled
3	Secondary Modern	Community, Voluntary Aided or Controlled
4	Secondary Comprehensive or Middle	Foundation
5	Secondary Selective	Foundation
6	Secondary Modern	Foundation
7	Independent
8	FE Establishment
9	Sixth Form College
10	Tertiary College
11	Other (excluding private candidates)
13	City Academy
14	Free Schools
15	Private Candidates

Recent changes to this guidance

Date of change	Description of change
21/09/2026	Updated the document template and clarified aspects of the text. Changed the order of the first three fields to align with other data collections. Updated accepted values for QualificationLevel to include options for AS double awards and A level double awards available in Northern Ireland.

Contacts

For all queries or feedback relating to the data collection process, amendments to data previously provided, or for general guidance, please contact:

Data services

Ofqual
2nd floor, 1 Friargate
Station Square
Coventry
CV1 2GN

Email data.services@ofqual.gov.uk