January 2021: Withdrawing Cambridge Nationals and Cambridge Technicals entries

If assessments do not go ahead at your school or college, you can withdraw January 2021 entries and we will refund you. We will continue to engage with the DfE and with our regulator Ofqual on the approach to awarding all qualifications this school year so students taking different qualifications are treated equally.

Will I get a refund if I withdraw my students?

If it's in the best interest of your student(s) to withdraw them from a live assessment opportunity, we will refund your entry.

What should we do with our secure assessment material if students are not going to sit the exams?

The usual JCQ regulations on the handling of secure material still apply, even if none of your candidates sit the exam in January (please see the JCQ Instructions for conducting examinations).

This means you need to keep the question papers secure until after the scheduled finishing time of the exam. After this, they can be released to teachers as normal. Any exam stationery, such as answer booklets, must kept secure and cannot be used for mock exams.

Withdrawing Cambridge Nationals entries

For Cambridge Nationals, you can withdraw your entries via Interchange or EDI in the normal way. Please see our website for more details. We will then issue you with a refund. This also applies to moderated units. You can withdraw candidates until 3 March and receive a refund but please withdraw them as soon as you can.

If you are withdrawing a whole cohort, you do not need to return your attendance register. However, if you are only withdrawing some of your candidates, make sure you return the attendance register with your completed question papers (scripts). Please make it clear which candidates have been withdrawn by marking them as withdrawn or crossing them out.

Withdrawing Cambridge Technicals entries

For most Cambridge Technicals, there is an online attendance list in Interchange. For any candidate who is not sitting the examination in January, please mark your candidate as absent on the online attendance list. There’s more information how to do this on our website.  We will then withdraw your candidate entry and issue test entry refunds during March 2021. ​If you are withdrawing all candidates for a unit, you do not need to wait until the exam takes place to submit these attendance lists – you may do this now. 

For Level 3 Business Unit 1 and Digital Media Unit 2, you should have paper attendance lists. For these qualifications, please mark candidates as absent on the paper attendance list you return with any completed question papers (scripts). If none of your candidates are sitting these units, please email us at VQProcessing@ocr.org.uk to let us know. 

For on-screen tests using Surpass, you don't need to do anything as, if the exam is not taken, the candidate will automatically be marked as absent.

Please do not send any EDI files for Cambridge Technicals withdrawals as this may create a duplicate entry.