Guidance

Mark/Grade changes outside of Reviews of Marking and Moderation (ROMM) and Appeals: 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.

What data will be collected?

Data should relate to post-result mark and/or grade changes, outside of Reviews of Marking and Moderation (ROMM) and Appeals for the time period and qualifications in scope of the collection. It should capture any and all instances where an issued result is replaced by a different result, outside of the ROMM, reviews of administrative decisions and appeals processes.

Qualifications in scope

The following qualification types are in scope of this collection:

• GCSE (including short course)
• AS
• A level

This template does require data on endorsements.

Countries in scope

Data should be included for all students in centres in:

• England

Time period in scope

Data is collected once per academic year, including both the latest summer and November exam series.

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 change per reason per component per student following the guidance below.
4. Data should include mark/grade changes for all components taken within the reporting period.
5. Changes to English Endorsements and Science Practicals should be reported.
6. Do not include changes as a result of a review of administrative decisions as these are recorded separately as part of the appeals data collection.
7. Changes relating to special consideration should only be for requests made on or after results dates.
8. All mark changes should be provided, regardless of whether or not it resulted in a grade change.
9. If a component has more than one change for different reasons, this should be recorded as an additional row of data. When reporting mark and/or grade changes for outcomes that are reconsidered or changed for more than 1 reason we expect the mark and/or grade changes to be reported at the overall qualification level. As such, if the same mark and/or grade is changed for 2 distinct reasons, the change seen across both rows is the same and not distinct to each individual reason.
10. When reporting cases where there is more than one mark/grade change associated to the same student with the same reason for reconsideration and change (be this across 2 different units or the same unit) we expect each mark/grade change to be recorded separately. The cumulative effect of the several mark changes should be seen across the multiple records.
11. When a change is made to a student’s mark and/or grade which is later reversed, we would like to capture both changes. For the row indicating the change back to the original mark/grade we would expect the reason for change to be documented “reversal of a previous grade change”. If possible, only report on the change and reversal of change if the initial change was issued to a centre.
12. The fields ReasonForReconsideration and ReasonForMark/GradeChange should have the relevant codes entered as per the agreed lists found in Appendix A and Appendix B.
13. In order to distinguish between endorsement and non-endorsement grades, report full endorsement grades, for example, ‘Pass’, ‘Merit’ or ‘Distinction’ as opposed to ‘P’, ‘M’ or ‘D’.
14. In order to distinguish between endorsement and non-endorsement grades, report separate unit codes for rows relating to endorsements.

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	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	Valid awarding organisation acronym. 1 to 150 characters accepted	^.{1,150}$
CentreNo	Centre’s National Centre Number as allocated by the Joint Council for Qualifications (JCQ) Higher NCN code not accepted	4	Valid NCN code. 5-digit integer accepted Higher NCN code not accepted	^\d{5}$
UniqueCandidateIdentifier	Unique Candidate Identifier (UCI)	5	Valid UCI. Alpha numeric 13 characters accepted	^.{13}$
QAN	The unique identifier for the qualification as it appears in Ofqual’s Register of Regulated qualifications, for example, 123/1234/1	6	Valid qualification number. 10 characters accepted	^.{10}$
SpecificationTitle	Specification title, also known as subject title	7	1 to 150 characters accepted	^.{1,150}$
SpecificationCode	Specification code, also known as Subject Award Code and Cash-in Code	8	1 to 7 characters accepted	^.{1,7}$
QualificationLevel	Type of qualification	9	Accepted values: •GCSE •AS •A level	^(GCSE|AS|A level)$
UnitCode	Unit or component code as designated in the specification -2 accepted where a change occurs at qualification level and is not explicitly linked to one or more unit codes	10	1 to 10 characters accepted. -2 accepted where a change occurs at qualification level and is not explicitly linked to one or more unit codes	^.{1,10}$
OriginalQualificationUMSModularOrScaleScorelinear	Original qualification scale score	11	Up to 3-digit integer accepted -2 accepted for not applicable or unknown value	^(?:-2|\d{1,3})$
ResultingQualificationUMSModularOrScaleScorelinear	Resulting qualification scale score	12	Up to 3-digit integer accepted -2 accepted for not applicable or unknown value	^(?:-2|\d{1,3})$
OriginalQualificationGrade	Original qualification grade	13	Accepted values: • A* to E • 9 to 1 • 9-9 to 1-1 • U • X • Q • N • Pass • Merit • Distinction • NC -2 accepted where grade is unknown	^(A*|A|B|C|D|E|N|Q|U|X|NC|9|8|7|6|5|4|3|2|1|9-9|9-8|8-8|8-7|7-7|7-6|6-6|6-5|5-5|5-4|4-4|4-3|3-3|3-2|2-2|2-1|1-1|-2|Pass|Merit|Distinction)$
ResultingQualificationGrade	Resulting qualification grade	14	Accepted values: • A* to E • 9 to 1 • 9-9 to 1-1 • U • X • Q • N • Pass • Merit • Distinction • NC -2 accepted where grade is unknown	^(A*|A|B|C|D|E|N|Q|U|X|NC|9|8|7|6|5|4|3|2|1|9-9|9-8|8-8|8-7|7-7|7-6|6-6|6-5|5-5|5-4|4-4|4-3|3-3|3-2|2-2|2-1|1-1|-2|Pass|Merit|Distinction)$
ReasonForReconsideration	The reason for reconsideration of marks/grades	15	Integer between 1 and 8 See Appendix A for the accepted reasons for reconsideration and their corresponding codes	^(1|2|3|4|5|6|7|8)$
ReasonForMark/GradeChange	The reason for mark/grade change	16	Integer between 1 and 19, excluding 17 See Appendix B for the accepted reasons for mark/grade change and their corresponding codes	^(1|2|3|4|5|6|7|8|9|10|11|12|13|14|15|16|18|19)$
DateOfChange	Date when the mark or grade change was made	17	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])$

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
‘ExamSeries’ value is in scope of the return	Fail and rejected
‘AwardingOrganisation’ is valid acronym in Ofqual register	Fail and rejected
‘CentreNo’ is a valid reference number in the NCN register	Fail and rejected
‘UniqueCandidateIdentifier’ is a valid UCI format	Fail and rejected
‘QAN’ is a valid qualification number in Ofqual register	Fail and rejected
‘SpecificationCode’ must be consistent with those submitted in the Specification code data collection	Fail and rejected
‘QualificationLevel’ and ‘QAN’ match Ofqual register’	Fail and rejected
‘QualificationLevel’ is in scope of the collection	Fail and rejected
‘ReasonForMark/GradeChange’ is not 17 which is a retired value	Fail and rejected

Appendix A: Code values for ReasonsForReconsideration field

Reason for reconsideration	Code to be entered for this field
Wider investigation into marking as a result of a review of marking	1
Wider investigation into marking as a result of a review of moderation	2
Wider investigation as a result of an appeal	3
Wider investigation, not as a result of a review of marking, moderation or appeal.	4
Complaints	5
Other (any reason other than those listed here)	6
Special consideration	7
Malpractice	8

Appendix B: Code values for ReasonForMark/GradeChange field

Reasons for mark/grade change	Code to be entered for this field
Work not seen or marked by original examiner	1
Error in totalling of marks by original examiner (e.g. examiner did not add up marks correctly)	2
Error in transferring marks from paper script to exam processing system (e.g. discrepancy between marks on script and marks on exam board system)	3
Error in inputting marks on online marking system by original examiner (e.g. mark incorrectly input)	4
Error in centre submitting marks (e.g. incorrect mark submitted for non-examination assessment)	5
Original marking/processing had incorrectly dealt with a candidate rubric error and/or answer in wrong answer space.	6
Original marker unable to read candidate response (e.g. illegible handwriting)	7
Application of special consideration during post-results	8
Missing script located (e.g. original script not marked).	9
Processing error (e.g. scanning, scaling, grading)	10
Auto-marking error (e.g. wrong answer key)	11
Outcome of malpractice investigation (e.g. mark change due to estimation of marks)	12
Marking – misapplication of levels based mark scheme	13
Marking – misapplication of points-based mark scheme	14
Marking – unusual candidate response (e.g. candidate response not covered by the mark scheme)	15
Moderation – misapplication of criteria by original moderator (e.g. error by original moderator)	16
Special cases (e.g. candidate sat wrong paper)	18
Reversal of a previous grade change	19

Recent changes to this guidance

Date of change	Description of change
21/09/2026	Updated the document template and clarified aspects of the text. Time period in scope changed so data is collected once per academic year, including both the latest summer and November exam series. Removed legacy grades from accepted values for ‘OriginalQualificationGrade’ and ‘ResultingQualificationGrade’. Changed validation for ‘CentreNo’ field to accept 5 digits only in line with the expectation for a valid NCN. Changed validation for ‘UCI’ to accept 13 characters only in line with the expectation for a valid UCI
18/11/2024	Guidance updated regarding endorsement grades: • To report full grades (eg ‘Pass’ not ‘P’) • To report separate unit codes for endorsements Guidance also updated to clarify that changes as a result of reviews of administrative decisions should not be included

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