Guidance notes – Centre Consortium Arrangements 

Where candidates from different centres are taught and assessed together, but will be entered through the centre where they are on roll, the relevant awarding body must be informed that the centres wish to be treated as a consortium.

The online Centre Consortium Arrangements form, accessed via the Centre Admin Portal (CAP), must be completed and submitted to the awarding body. CAP can be accessed via any of the awarding bodies’ secure extranet sites.

Centre consortium arrangements must apply to all the candidates entered for the relevant centre-assessed component/unit across all centres in the consortium.

1. For each centre-assessed component/unit, centres must carry out internal standardisation of marking across the consortium.
2. The centres in the consortium must nominate a consortium co-ordinator who will liaise with the awarding body/bodies on behalf of all the centres. Centres will need to provide the relevant component/unit details, contact details of the lead centre and its co-ordinator and list all the centres within the consortium.
3. The awarding body will allocate the same moderator to each centre in the consortium and the candidates will be treated as a single group for the moderation of centre-assessed work.
4. Before commencing the moderation process, the awarding body will inform moderators of any consortia in their allocation. A single sample will be selected which will include representative coverage of the range of marks across the whole consortium, normally including the highest and lowest mark within the consortium.
5. Each centre in the consortium will receive the report from the moderator, in addition to a report detailing the allocation of marks.
6. If a consortium submits a request for a review of moderation, the work must be available from all the centres in the consortium, as it is the original sample that is reviewed.
7. Candidates’ work from all the centres in the consortium must be securely retained until after the closing date for review of results for the series concerned or until after any appeal, malpractice or other results enquiry has been completed, whichever is later.
8. Consortium co-ordinators must submit an online form for each series using CAP, which can be accessed via any of the awarding bodies’ secure extranet sites, no later than:1st October 2025 for the GCSE November 2025 examination series31st January 2026 for the June 2026 examination series†For other qualification types and other examination series during the academic year 2025/2026, please see the relevant awarding body’s website.

This form does not need to be completed for the Practical Skills Endorsement, A-level Biology, Chemistry, Geology or Physics, except for centres in Wales offering WJEC specifications.

* Where a centre-assessed component/unit is subject to visiting moderation, please see the relevant awarding body’s website. The awarding body will advise the centre of the date by which the form must be submitted to them.