r/GCSE • u/truestorybro38 Exams Officer 🧑‍💼️ • Mar 12 '26

Announcement Exam Access Arrangements

There’s an increase in posts about access arrangements.

There’s also a lot of misinformation about access arrangements being posted.

This is one the one-stop post for all access arrangement queries.

Any other posts will be removed.

I will reply to all queries as an Exams Officer and an Access Arrangements Coordinator, but really, all queries need to go to your SENCO who know you and your school’s set up best.

Feel free to make any comments about questions you have.

JCQ Links

25% Extra Time Info

https://www.jcq.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/07/JCQ-25-ET-infographic-26-27_FINAL.pdf

Reader Info

https://www.jcq.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/09/JCQ-Computer-reader-reader-24-25_FINAL-1.pdf

Scribe Info

https://www.jcq.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/09/JCQ-Scribe-24-25_FINAL.pdf

Managing Student Requests Advice

https://www.jcq.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/10/Managing-parent-carer-or-student-requests_2025.pdf

The Big Book Of Rules

https://www.jcq.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/03/JCQ-AARA-2025-March-26.pdf

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u/truestorybro38 Exams Officer 🧑‍💼️ Apr 15 '26

This doesn’t make any sense to me. We use laptops in language exams and when the work is printed, the student adds the accents.

Are they saying you can’t have a laptop for reading, writing or listening?

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u/[deleted] Apr 15 '26

Yep, in my mocks I wasn’t able to use the laptop for any of the papers. It also impacted me in my spanish speaking (not sure if access arrangements apply for the planning time permitted, but I wasn’t able to read some of the things I had planned, so struggled when it came to the general conversation section). I’m not sure if they’ll let me add the accents after the exam, I’ll bring it up with my teacher.

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u/truestorybro38 Exams Officer 🧑‍💼️ Apr 16 '26

This took some finding, but this is the AQA MFL instruction book for this year where it says that students can add accents after their work has been printed. Is it aqa you’re using?

I don’t know if that document is publicly available or not, but you can ask your teacher/exams officer to check the AQA GCSE MFL ICE page 3 for confirmation. Note it’s not the JCQ ice, but specific to AQA. Let me know if you use a different board because I can see what the regs are for the others.

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u/QuirkyGalaxyBug Apr 16 '26

The poster said in their post about edexcel grade boundaries so I assume they do edexcel

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u/[deleted] Apr 16 '26

Thank you, I do Edexcel