Access Arrangements as a Private Candidate in 2026

Access arrangements are exam adjustments – 25% extra time, a reader or a separate room among them – applied for by a JCQ-approved centre on a private candidate's behalf, never by the candidate alone. A private candidate with no current school must still show a genuine, current normal way of working: JCQ regulations state a report commissioned outside the centre cannot be used to award one. The deadline for most November 2026 GCSE access arrangements is 1 November 2026.

What Access Arrangements Are, and Why a Diagnosis Alone Is Not Enough

Access arrangements sit inside a specific legal framework rather than a general goodwill gesture. JCQ, the umbrella body for AQA, Pearson Edexcel, OCR and WJEC, describes them as the principal way an awarding body meets its duty under the Equality Act 2010 to make reasonable adjustments for a disabled candidate. They are agreed before the exam and are intended to remove a barrier without changing what the assessment tests. Special consideration is a separate, later process – an adjustment to a mark or grade after something goes wrong on the day, such as illness – and the two are frequently confused even though only one of them can be arranged in advance.

The mistake private candidates make most often is assuming a privately commissioned assessment settles the matter on its own. It does not. JCQ's regulations are explicit on this point: “A privately commissioned assessment, where the centre has not been involved, cannot be used to award access arrangements and cannot be used to process an application using Access arrangements online.” An assessor a family finds and pays for independently can still be used, but only if that assessor contacts the centre, works with its SENCo – the special educational needs co-ordinator who runs the process – and is approved by the head of centre before the assessment takes place, not afterwards.

A further restriction catches tutored candidates specifically. JCQ states plainly that “a private tutor cannot facilitate an access arrangement,” so a candidate's own tutor cannot act as their reader or scribe in the exam room, however closely that tutor has worked with them through preparation. The centre has to appoint someone independent of the candidate's own tuition.

Who Assesses You, and What “Normal Way of Working” Means With No Current School

Whoever assesses a private candidate must hold a recognised qualification, and checking this sits with the head of centre. JCQ's regulations require the head of centre to verify “the qualifications of those assessing candidates (e.g. photocopy of certificate or printout of screenshot of HCPC or SASC registration)” – registration with the Health and Care Professions Council or the SpLD Assessment Standards Committee, in practice. JCQ does not itself approve individual assessors, and holds no list of who qualifies.

The harder requirement, and the one that catches most private candidates out, is proving “normal way of working” – evidence that an arrangement reflects how a candidate genuinely works day to day, rather than something introduced for the first time at the exam. For a pupil still at school, that evidence builds up on its own: mock exams, ordinary classwork, an existing support plan the school already holds. A private candidate studying alone, through a tutor, or via distance learning has none of that shared history with the centre that will eventually host them – which is exactly why this step is the one families most underestimate.

JCQ's guidance for centres accepting private candidates sets out, specifically for this situation, what a SENCo can use in place of that missing school history. Acceptable sources include a work log the candidate keeps of how assignments are completed, a timed sample paper – “the candidate could be given the allocated time for the paper, then change their pen colour and continue for an extra 25% of the time allowed” – feedback from a distance-learning provider or private tutor, and, where it exists, information from a previous centre, such as arrangements made for Key Stage 2 National Curriculum Tests. Parent or carer comments are accepted only as a fallback, where the candidate or a private tutor cannot supply enough information themselves.

The evidence bar itself is specific rather than a matter of impression. For 25% extra time on grounds of a learning difficulty, JCQ requires a fully completed Form 8 showing “at least two below average standardised scores of 84 or less… relating to two different areas of speed of working.” For a medical condition such as ADHD, ASD or a mental health condition, the diagnosis behind a Form 9 application must come from “a registered specialist, such as a clinical paediatrician or a hospital consultant” – a letter from a GP is not sufficient on its own. Spreadsheets, emails and centre-devised substitutes for Form 8 are explicitly rejected too; only the form itself is accepted for inspection.

Do Arrangements Carry Over From Your Old School? Not Automatically

A student who had 25% extra time at school often assumes it simply follows them to a new centre. JCQ's own guidance, written specifically for this situation, says otherwise: “Access arrangements must always be based on current need and reflect the candidate's normal way of working in their new centre. Centres must not rely solely on previous applications.” Nothing carries over by default.

Some of the paperwork behind an arrangement can be reused, but only within strict limits. An existing Form 8 may be carried to a new centre if it remains fully compliant – Parts 1, 2 and 3 complete, signed and dated, the standardised tests conducted no earlier than Year 9, and the original assessor holding a valid Level 7 or equivalent qualification with evidence of this on file. Even then, reusing the form is not the same as reusing the arrangement itself. JCQ is direct about this: “A new online application must be submitted via AAO and approved,” at the new centre, every time – AAO being Access Arrangements Online, the system every centre must use.

Progressing from GCSE to A-level adds a further form to the process. Where a compliant Form 8 already covers 25% extra time, a scribe, a computer reader, or supervised rest breaks, the new centre must complete Form 8RF – a “roll forward” confirmation – before it can rely on that evidence in a fresh application; it cannot simply resubmit the old paperwork as if it were new. A Form 9 is treated more strictly still: JCQ states outright that “Form 9 cannot be rolled forward when the candidate moves to a new qualification level,” so a candidate with a medical condition who had extra time approved for GCSEs needs an entirely new Form 9 for A-levels, built on current medical evidence, however recently the original was approved.

Individual centres describe the same principle in plainer terms. Exam Centre London tells its own private candidates: “If your previous Access Arrangements are still valid and you have supporting evidence, we can usually continue using them. However, updated documentation may be required depending on the time elapsed since the last assessment.” “Usually” and “may be required” are doing real work in that sentence – this is a case-by-case judgement the new centre makes, not an automatic transfer of what you had before.

Who Actually Applies – You Need a Centre Willing to Do Two Jobs

The application itself is never submitted by the candidate. JCQ's main private-candidates page states that “each centre is also responsible for putting in place any access arrangements” for the private candidates it accepts, and OCR's own guidance for private candidates confirms the same point from the awarding body's side: “your centre may apply on your behalf for the arrangements.” The practical consequence is that finding a centre and securing an access arrangement are not two separate errands – they are the same negotiation, because a centre unwilling to process the paperwork is not a usable centre, whatever else it offers.

This is also why access needs have to be disclosed at the very start of the search, not raised after a place is secured. AQA tells candidates that arrangements “should be requested at the time you make your entry and before the deadline dates” – not afterwards. Our companion guide to finding an exam centre as a private candidate covers that search in general; the point worth adding here is that “will this centre accept me” and “will this centre process my access arrangement” need to be asked in the same phone call, since a centre can say yes to one and no to the other.

The Deadlines: Earlier Than the Exam Entry Deadline, and Different for Modified Papers

Access arrangement deadlines are set independently of the exam entry deadline, and do not always track it – a distinction that catches out private candidates who assume a single date governs everything. For the November 2026 GCSE series, Pearson's published deadlines split the two: the cut-off to request modified papers – enlarged print, Braille, or a language-modified paper – is 20 September 2026, while the deadline for every other access arrangement, including 25% extra time, a reader or a scribe, is 1 November 2026. AQA publishes the same modified-papers date for the same series: 20 September 2026.

The same two-tier structure repeats across every exam series JCQ publishes. JCQ's own deadline table for the June 2026 series set the modified-papers cut-off at 31 January 2026, ahead of a general access-arrangements deadline of 21 March 2026. Modified papers close first every time, because producing an enlarged, Braille or language-modified paper takes considerably longer to arrange than approving extra time or a reader.

None of this accounts for a centre's own internal cut-off, which routinely falls earlier still. JCQ's own worked example describes a distance-learning candidate whose application landed close to the provider's internal deadline of 1 December for access arrangement applications. Exam Centre London gives the same warning from the centre's side: “If you miss our internal deadline, we may not be able to guarantee that the awarding body will process your request in time.” Ask every centre for its own cut-off on the first call, and treat the board's published date as the absolute latest point, never the target to aim for.

What It Costs, Honestly

JCQ does not regulate or publish what an assessor may charge, because the arrangement sits between the family and the centre – or the assessor the centre approves – not the exam board. That makes cost the least standardised part of the whole process, and the honest answer is that it varies by centre in a way no single figure can summarise.

One real London exam centre publishes its own policy rather than leaving families to guess. Exam Centre London states it does “not charge for access arrangement applications, Form 8 assessments, or processing related to confirmed exam entries,” but does charge for the mock exam some candidates need purely to generate evidence of extra time in use: “the fee for an unmarked mock exam is £80.” A private candidate with no recent internal school exams to point to may need exactly this kind of paid mock sitting to build the evidence trail a SENCo can act on.

Where a centre has no in-house capacity to assess a particular need, families are often the ones who have to locate and fund a suitably qualified assessor themselves. That assessor's fee is not something JCQ sets or caps – but the rule covered above still applies to it in full: the assessor must contact the centre and be approved by the head of centre before assessing, or the resulting report cannot be used at all, whatever it cost to obtain.

There is a related cost most families do not anticipate. Because a private tutor cannot facilitate an access arrangement, a candidate whose own tutor would naturally act as reader or scribe cannot rely on that relationship in the exam room – the centre has to source, and in practice sometimes charge for, an independent reader or scribe instead. Ask about this specifically when discussing fees, rather than assuming the entry fee covers it.

The Arrangements in Practice, and What Evidence Each Needs

JCQ splits access arrangements into two tiers, and which tier an arrangement falls into determines how much evidence a private candidate has to assemble. Twenty-one arrangements are delegated entirely to the centre: “these arrangements do not require an examination centre to process an online application or, in most cases, produce any evidence of need for inspection.” The SENCo simply has to be satisfied the arrangement is genuinely needed. This centre-delegated tier includes alternative rooming arrangements, coloured overlays, supervised rest breaks, a word processor with the spelling and grammar check switched off, a low vision aid, an examination reading pen, and a timer on the candidate's desk.

A second, smaller tier needs a formal online application backed by evidence: 25% extra time, extra time above 25%, a computer reader or reader, a scribe or speech recognition technology, a bilingual dictionary with 25% extra time, a practical assistant, and timetable variation. The specific evidence standard varies even within this tier. A computer reader or reader needs only “centre-based evidence from the SENCo confirming the nature of the candidate's impairment and that the use of a computer reader/reader reflects their normal and current way of working” – no standardised test score is required, unlike for 25% extra time. A separate room, by contrast, sits in the centre-delegated tier and needs no online application at all, though JCQ notes that centres “will apply strict criteria for this arrangement, subject to appropriate evidence of need.”

Essex Exam Centre gives a plain illustration of what “normal way of working” means for a specific arrangement: “your child won't be allowed a laptop for GCSEs if they have never used one in school.” The same logic runs through every arrangement on both lists. The question a SENCo is actually answering is never “does this candidate have a diagnosis”, but “is this how the candidate already works”.

Frequently Asked Questions