Support for Exams Officers on how to enter students for exams, including information on resits, key dates, entry systems and basedata.
Centre approval
You can’t enter your students for our exams unless we’ve approved your centre. Make sure you become an OxfordAQA school before you start teaching a course.
Students can take OxfordAQA exams without attending your school. This would be known as a private candidate. Private candidates may also enter for examined only units via the British Council. Please contact your local British Council office (external link) for details.
Centres may accept private candidates for examined units only with the prior agreement of OxfordAQA. If you are an approved OxfordAQA centre and wish to accept private candidates, please contact OxfordAQA at: [email protected].
All approved centres must follow and adhere to OxfordAQA policies.
Further information on private candidates:
A private candidate is an individual who enters for examinations through an OxfordAQA-approved school but is not enrolled as a student there. Private candidates may be self-taught, home-schooled or have private tuition with a tutor or distance-learning organisation.
Not all OxfordAQA specifications are available to private candidates, and those with internally-assessed components will have restrictions. These must be checked before entry.
Subject-specific information relevant to private candidates is marked with a P in the Entry Codes booklet. A private candidate will need to confirm they have practical work or fieldwork arrangements in place if this forms part of the chosen subject of entry.
Safeguarding policy guidance
Safeguarding is at the foundation of OxfordAQA’s work, and we are committed to the welfare of everyone we work with and serve – particularly children and young people.
Safeguarding means protecting people’s health and wellbeing, alongside ensuring they can live free from harm, abuse and neglect. Everyone who works for or on behalf of OxfordAQA, such as staff, associates or partners, has a responsibility for support the care and protection of children and adults at risk of abuse and exploitation.
OxfordAQA is committed to helping students successfully progress to their next stage of education or employment. If students are struggling, we believe they should be offered support to help meet their needs.
Every year, students write or draw material in their exam papers which raise concerns with our examiners regarding their safety or wellbeing. When this happens, our examiners will raise these concerns with our Safeguarding Lead who will contact the relevant school so they can speak to the student and offer support if needed.
In this way, OxfordAQA can help young people in distress who may feel the only way they can ask for help is through writing in their exam paper.
We ensure our examiners are trained and alert to pick up any issues, and we will work swiftly to pass any concerns to you promptly.
In return, we ask that you take the matter forward in line with your internal safeguarding policy and relevant local guidance or legislation.
In order to fulfil our commitment to each other, OxfordAQA asks that you provide a copy of your school’s safeguarding policy during the centre approval process.
OxfordAQA does not intend to tell schools how they should manage safeguarding, nor does it endorse or approve policies that are provided to us. However, we do need to seek assurance that any school we approve has:
- A designated person to contact about safeguarding matters, with clear contact details provided.
- A process to respond to any safeguarding concern raised.
- Aligned this process with local legislation or guidance.
- Made locally-appropriate checks on any staff it has employed.
- A process to respond to any safeguarding concerns raised about its staff members.
Your school’s safeguarding policy must address these five points. This gives us the confidence that the schools we approve view the safeguarding of their students with the same high value that we do at OxfordAQA, and that if a concern arises we can refer this to the school, safe in the knowledge it will be dealt with swiftly and appropriately.
Please view our Safeguarding FAQs for more information regarding OxfordAQA’s safeguarding policy.
When to make entries
You can view opening and deadline dates on our Dates and Timetables page.
Our Exams Update newsletter will also let you know when entries are open. It’s important that you don’t miss the dates. If you do, you’ll be charged an extra fee.
Making entries
You can use either Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) or Centre Services to make entries for all qualifications. For help, you can access training on Learning Space.
Centre Services is a secure area where OxfordAQA customers log in to gain access to a number of examination services.
To make entries on Centre Services, you will first need to register as your centre’s main administrator, then log in using your account credentials. If you need any support, contact [email protected].
The following services available to centre administrators are:
- administration – to manage staff account access
- entries
- access to teaching resources, forms and non-secure materials
- secure key materials – secure ‘padlocked’ exam material, only available to the centre administrator
- access arrangements / special consideration
- centre mark submission – find out more on our NEA page
- teacher online standardisation (T-OLS) for subjects with controlled assessment and non-exam assessment (NEA)
- administrator tools
- results
- post results services
- Enhanced Results Analysis (ERA)
You can also view our video guide – how to make entries in Centre Services.
Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) is the process of setting up your school or college’s management information system (MIS) so that it can send and receive your entries in the right format.
We provide you with a ‘basedata’ file for a series – this is a file that contains all the information you need to make entries for each student, and details about the specification such as timetable and fees. You can import basedata straight into your MIS.
You can then set up and use A2C Transport Application (external link) and send us the entry data. Use A2C’s Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) (external link) to help you. The A2C Data Exchange Project is led by the Joint Council for Qualifications (JCQ) and services UK based awarding organisations.
Use our Information you need to submit student entries page to help you.
A zip file contains one or more files that have usually been compressed to reduce file size. To open (unzip) such a file with Windows or Apple OS, just double-click on it.
If you aren’t using either of these operating systems, you may need to download and install a special piece of software that will zip and unzip files.
If you don’t already have one, you can download a free unzipping tool, such as WinZip , WinRAR or 7zip .
Series codes
- BY23 – November 2023 exam series – International GCSE only
- 1X24 – January 2024 exam series – International AS/A-level only
- 6Y24 – May/June 2024 exam series – International GCSE
- 6X24 – May/June 2024 exam series – International AS/A-level
Useful resources for making entries
- Making an entry flowchart (PDF) – a handy guide to the entries process
- Information you need to submit student entries (previously called Entry Fields) – help with the information needed to complete entry submission
- 2023/24 Entry Codes Booklet – contains the entry codes, information and restrictions
- Top tips on getting your exam entries right first time
Check entries
Whether you submitted through EDI or Centre Services, you can use Centre Services to see and check your entries. This will allow you to see the total number of students entered for each entry code.
You can also:
- print or save lists of all students and their entries for a series, subject, option, component
- print attendance records
- print or save any entry query reports and check your entry and amendment submissions
Visit our Check, change and withdraw entries page for more information.
Estimated entries
Ahead of every series, we ask you to give us an early estimate of the number of students you’ll be entering for exams.
Estimated entries are completely provisional and do not commit your school in any way – they simply help us ensure we dispatch enough exam materials to you in time for the busiest exam period. We also use estimated entries to assign examiners or moderators to your school, where needed.
How to submit estimated entries
Download our How to submit estimated entries guide (PDF).
You must submit estimated entries using Centre Services. Entries from the previous year can be re-used as a starting point. You don’t need to tell us about minor adjustments to estimated entries after you’ve submitted them.
Before you begin you will need to know which OxfordAQA subjects are being taught in your school, as well as the numbers of students who may sit exams in each International GCSE subject, or International AS/A-level unit. The Entry codes booklet can help you.
Invoicing and how to pay
Visit our How to pay your invoice page to find out more about our invoicing process.
Did you find what you were looking for?
You can return to Exams Administration home and try again, or search here.
If you have a specific query that could not be answered by the information provided on our support pages, please contact us via our Exam Administration query form.
