Official Statistics
Special consideration in GCSE, AS and A level: summer 2025 exam series
Numbers of adjustments to the marks of candidates who have not been able to demonstrate attainment because of exceptional circumstances.
Applies to England
Documents
Details
Key headlines
- In summer 2025, 168,245 individual students had at least 1 special consideration request approved. This represents 12.2% of the overall 1,376,480 GCSE, AS and A level students with results issued in summer 2025. This is similar to summer 2024 where 13.1% of the overall 1,349,260 GCSE, AS and A level students had at least 1 special consideration request approved (176,115).
- In summer 2025, there were 725,115 GCSE, AS and A level special consideration requests, which is similar to 2024 (721,830 special consideration requests). For context there were 17.1 million GCSE, AS and A level scripts and non-exam assessments marked in summer 2025 and 16.7 million marked in summer 2024.
- The majority of special consideration requests (96.1%) were approved, similar to summer 2024 (95.1%).
- Most approved requests in summer 2025 were for mark adjustments (96.1%) rather than qualification awards (3.9%). This is similar to summer 2024 where mark adjustments and qualification awards constituted 95.2% and 4.8% of approved requests respectively.
Provide your feedback
We welcome your feedback on our publications. If you have any comments on this statistical release, or how to improve it to meet your needs, complete our short survey or data.analytics@ofqual.gov.uk.
Updates to this page
Published 20 November 2025