Information you need to submit student entries

We don’t provide candidate numbers; you will need to create a number for each student at the beginning of the academic year. Please use these candidate numbers on all record and assessment forms.

A candidate number is always four digits long, from 0001 to 9999. It’s best if you use the same number for a candidate for all awarding bodies.

Where entries have been submitted via Centre Services candidate numbers cannot be changed within a series. If you don’t add a candidate number to an entry, we will not be able to process the entry.

We recommend that you enter your students with their full legal name including middle names, so that we can verify against suitable identification such as a birth certificate, passport or driver’s license. We will use this name on the student’s printed certificate.  Please note that it may cause problems with employers and centres of education if the name on certificates does not match other identification.

A student’s name can be up to 40 characters in length, including hyphens, colons, spaces or apostrophes. The format is SURNAME: FORENAME(S) AND/OR INITIAL(S).

• BURNS: EMMA KAY
• BARBER-DOHERTY: B K LORNA
• DE LA BLANCHE: JULIE

If a student does not have a forename, put the colon at the end of the complete name, eg:

• TANG PO HENG:

We have a name variation form for you to tell us so that we can make sure the names are complete and correct on results documents. This form should be used if:

• A student’s name has been shortened to fit within this 40 character limit, or
• A name features non-standard characters (we call them diacritics)

Examples of diacritic characters include:

é – accent acute          è – accent grave          ê – circumflex              ë – umlaut or diaerisis

ç – cedilla                     ñ – tilde                       ø – streg                      ð – eth (capital form Ð)

å – bolle                      æ – ligature                 œ – ligature                 ē – macron

č – háček                    ŭ – crescent

We require all parts of the form to be completed so that the name is displayed correctly on the Certified Statement of Results (CSOR) and certificate(s).

You should have the information below for all affected students before you begin:

• Exam series.
• Centre number.
• Centre name.
• Student number.
• Student entered forename(s) and middle name(s).
• Student entered surname(s).
• Student UCI number.
• Student full legal forename(s) and middle name(s).
• Student full legal surname(s).
• Name and role of the person who is submitting the Name Amendment form.
• Date that the Name Amendment form is submitted.

Please be sure to complete it carefully, it will take longer for us to process your request if anything is missing or incomplete.

This form must be completed and sent to us after the student has been entered and at least three weeks before results day.

A form must be completed and submitted for each school and in each series. Forms which include information for more than one school will not be processed.

The dark blue section must display the series, chosen from a drop-down list, and your school’s name and centre number.

The Centre Submission Declaration should be read, understood and adhered to by the staff member responsible for checking student details and submitting the form.

Sections 1 and 2 should be completed in full so we can correctly process the information. We’ve included an example on the form of sections 1 and 2 completed correctly.

Once you have completed all sections with the required information:

• save the form, including your centre number and series in the title, for example, Name variation_99999_236Y,
• attach it to an email, and
• send it to [email protected] with the subject line Name variation form, your centre number and the exam series month and year. For example Name variation form 99999 May / June 2023.

You will receive an email notification when we receive and process your request. If we require any further information from you, we will email you.

If you have already emailed us about a name variation, please complete and send a form, as detailed above, as well. This will allow us better quality assurance around the processing of student information and accuracy of the results documents.

You must provide a date of birth for all students. We cannot issue a certificate if the date of birth is missing from the student’s entry.

The required format is:

• DD/MM/YY – for entries made through EDI and basedata e.g. 01/01/22
• DD/MMM/YYYY – for entries made through Centre Services e.g. 01/JAN/2022

The status code tells us whether a student is at a school or is a private candidate:

• Use C for a centre student: any part-time or full-time student enrolled at your school
• Use P for a private candidate

Before you create a UCI for a student, check that they definitely don’t already have one. If they do, keep using it – do not create a second one.

If you’re making entries through EDI, your management information system (MIS) should be able to create a UCI automatically or find out a student’s existing UCI. It goes in positions 60-72 in the entries and amendments detail record.

Our entries systems use the same principles as awarding organisations based in the UK, the JCQ website contains in-depth information about UCIs

If you’re making entries in Centre Services, you’ll need to create a UCI manually. You can use the information in this document (PDF) to do that.

If you find out that a student has more than one UCI, let us know as soon as possible: fill in the UCI merge request form (DOC) and send it to [email protected]. In the meantime you should update your system to the previous UCI.

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Entry code

Our entry code book has entry codes for every qualification.

There are different types of entry code for each subject. They are:

• an entry code for the overall award (generally four characters long – please note, this is different to the specification code)
• an entry code for each unit, option or tier (generally four characters long).

You need to make sure each student is entered with all the relevant entry codes that you want results for – ie: the overall award and the individual units or components.

Exam series 

An ‘exam series’ is the period or session when a whole series of exams take place, for example, June 2021. The series code for OxfordAQA International Examinations, summer 2021 is ‘6X21 or 6Y21’. You’ll need to know your series, because it will have its own basedata files, entries closing date and results date.

Exam series codes are four characters long. For example, the GCSE series code for June 2021 is 6Y21:

• 6 is the month (1–9 for January–September, A–C for October–December)
• Y is the set of qualifications
• 21 is the year.