Is a Remark Worth It in 2026? What the Data Says About Grades Going Down

A review of marking can lower a grade as well as raise it — no exam board offers grade protection. Ofqual’s official statistics for summer 2025 show that outcome affected under 0.1% of challenged AS/A level and GCSE grades, against roughly 24% that rose. AS and A-level results were released on 13 August 2026, with the priority review deadline on 20 August 2026; GCSE results follow on 20 August 2026.

Every request has to go through your centre, which may already be closed for the summer — the single most common reason a family misses the window. This page sets out how the rule works, how rarely it bites, what each service costs board by board, and the two traps that catch families every August: using the wrong exam board for a GCSE priority review, and requesting your original script back.

Can a Grade Really Go Down on a Review of Marking?

Yes — and this is not folklore, it is the explicit rule at every exam board. The Joint Council for Qualifications (JCQ), which governs the review process for AQA, Pearson Edexcel, OCR, WJEC and CCEA, states outright that “candidates must be informed that their marks and subject grades could go down as well as up.” AQA’s own review guidance goes further: “There is no grade protection for review of marking.” OCR uses near-identical wording: “candidates’ marks and subject grades may be lowered.” The government’s own accessible guide to reviews of marking, written for schools and colleges, confirms the same point from a different angle: “This can result in the mark going up or down for that individual exam paper … a review does not guarantee an improvement.”

None of the three boards offers a floor. A review of marking is a genuine re-examination of the paper against the mark scheme, not a one-way appeal. The senior examiner checking your script has no obligation to preserve your original mark — if the mark scheme was applied correctly the first time and a second read simply confirms it, nothing changes; if the first marker missed something that had worked in your favour, correcting it can lower the mark even though the process is behaving exactly as intended. This is why every board asks a centre to get written consent from the student before submitting a request: you are agreeing to a genuine re-mark, not a guaranteed upgrade.

How Often Does a Grade Actually Fall? Ofqual’s Summer 2025 Figures

Knowing the rule exists is one thing; knowing how often it actually bites is what should drive a decision made this week. Ofqual answers this precisely every year in its official statistics publication, Reviews of marking and moderation for GCSE, AS and A level: summer 2025, published on 11 December 2025 — the most recent full year of data available, and the year every 2026 decision should be built on.

For GCSE, Ofqual reports: “Of the 243,150 GCSE grades challenged for summer 2025, 58,725, (24.2%) were changed. Of all challenged grades, 24.1% were changed up and less than 0.1% were changed down.” For AS and A level: “Of the 58,830 AS and A level grades challenged for summer 2025, 14,150 (24.1%) were changed. Of all challenged grades, 24.0% were changed up and less than 0.1% were changed down.”

Zoomed out across every qualification, Ofqual’s summer 2025 figures show 6,526,780 GCSE, AS and A level grades awarded in total, of which 4.6% were challenged and 1.1% were changed following review. A review of marking is overwhelmingly either a grade rise or no change at all — but “less than 0.1%” is not zero, which is exactly why every board is required to warn you before you submit.

The Deadline That Matters This Week

A-level and AS results were released on Thursday 13 August 2026. The priority review window that opened alongside them closes in six days, on Thursday 20 August 2026 — AQA’s own review-and-priority-review page states the priority deadline as 20 August 2026, and Pearson’s key-dates page lists the identical date for its Service P2 priority review of marking. GCSE results follow a week later, on Thursday 20 August 2026, six days from today, so a GCSE reader is not yet inside any review window at all — nothing can be submitted on a grade that has not been released.

Priority review exists specifically so that a borderline grade can be resolved before it affects a university place confirmed through UCAS Clearing or Adjustment, or a sixth form place that depends on the final grade. Miss the priority window and the standard route is still open, but it runs far later — long after Clearing has closed for most courses.

What It Costs, Board by Board — And When You Get a Refund

Fees vary by board, by qualification, and by whether you choose the priority or standard service. AQA charges £51.95 per unit or component for a standard review of marking on AS/A-level papers, rising to £61.70 per unit or component for the priority service; a clerical re-check, which is a much smaller administrative check rather than a full re-mark, costs £9.70 per unit. Pearson charges per candidate rather than per unit: £73.00 for a standard Service 2 review of marking, and £76.00 for the priority Service P2. OCR does not publish a single flat figure in the same format, but mirrors AQA and Pearson on the point that matters most financially.

The refund clauses matter more than they first appear: every board we checked waives the fee specifically when your overall certification grade moves, not merely when an individual component mark shifts. That means the downside of requesting a review that does not change your grade is capped at the fee itself — there is no separate financial penalty layered on top for asking and being unsuccessful.

Clerical Re-check, Review of Marking, Review of Moderation: Which One Do You Need?

Families often use “remark” as a catch-all for three genuinely different JCQ services, and picking the wrong one wastes both time and the priority window. A clerical re-check is the lightest touch: JCQ describes it as “verification of marking accuracy” — a check that the marks on individual questions were added up correctly and transcribed accurately, not a re-read of your answers. It is cheap (£9.70 per unit at AQA) precisely because no examiner re-marks your work.

A review of marking is what most people actually mean by “remark.” JCQ’s definition: “This is a post-results review of the original marking to ensure that the mark scheme has been applied correctly.” A senior examiner re-reads your script against the mark scheme used at the time, which is why the outcome can move in either direction, as covered above.

A review of moderation is different again, and only relevant if part of your grade came from internally-assessed work — coursework or a non-exam assessment (NEA). JCQ defines it as: “This is a review of the original moderation to ensure that the assessment criteria have been fairly, reliably and consistently applied.” It checks how your school’s marking of coursework was adjusted against other schools, not how an exam paper was marked.

Private candidates — those sitting exams independently of a school or college — are treated slightly differently: JCQ says they “are encouraged to submit requests for reviews of marking via their centre. However, they may submit a request directly to an awarding body,” which is the one route into this process that does not require a school at all.

The Trap: Requesting Your Script Can Forfeit Your Review

There is one specific, easy-to-miss way to accidentally close off a review of marking before you have decided whether you want one: getting your original exam script physically returned to you. Pearson’s access-to-scripts guidance is unambiguous: “Once an exam paper has been returned it’s not possible to request for a review of marking (Service 2/Service 2P).”

The trap is specifically about the original script, not a copy requested purely for your own reference. Centres and candidates sometimes ask for a script back out of curiosity, or to show a tutor exactly where marks were lost, without realising that the act of receiving the original closes the door on a review of marking for that paper. If there is any chance you want a review, decide that first, request the review, and only consider asking to see the script afterwards — not the other way round. This is exactly the kind of decision that is easy to get backwards during a compressed six-day window, particularly if a school office is only lightly staffed over summer and gives a quick, informal answer rather than checking the specific service being requested.

GCSE Priority Review Exists at One Exam Board Only

If your child sat GCSEs with AQA or OCR, there is no priority route available at all this August, regardless of how urgent the situation feels. The government’s own accessible guide to reviews of marking states it plainly: “Only Pearson currently offers this service for GCSEs.” AQA confirms the same gap from its own side: priority review “is only available for: AS and A-level (including new AS specifications)” and specific Level 3 AQA qualifications — GCSE is not on that list, at any speed, for any fee.

Pearson Edexcel is the one exception, and its own GCSE priority deadline is Thursday 27 August 2026 — a week after GCSE results day, mirroring the standard seven-day priority window used across every qualification and board. A GCSE student at a Pearson centre genuinely has a faster route if a borderline grade is holding up a sixth form or college decision. A GCSE student at an AQA or OCR centre does not have that option at any price and is working to the single standard deadline of Thursday 24 September 2026, shared by every board and every qualification — five weeks after GCSE results day, which is the deadline worth telling a school office about clearly, in writing, this week.

Who Can Actually Request a Review — And What to Do If Your School Is Shut for Summer

You cannot submit a review of marking yourself, no matter how strongly you feel your grade is wrong. JCQ is explicit: “For internal candidates, awarding bodies will only accept requests for reviews of marking from centres and not from candidates or their parents.” The government’s guide for schools states the identical rule from the other side: “Only schools and colleges can request reviews on behalf of students.” The exam board simply will not accept a request that has not come through your centre — there is no direct portal for a student or parent to use, except for the private-candidate route covered above.

That rule collides directly with the calendar: results day lands in the middle of the school summer holiday, and many exams offices run on skeleton staffing, or none, through most of August. Three things are worth doing straight away, not left until the deadline week, if a review is even a possibility:

• Check whether your school published a results-day or post-results contact on its own website or in the letter sent with results — many schools publish a specific exams officer email precisely for this narrow window, separate from the general school office address.
• Email the exams officer and a member of senior leadership (Head of Sixth Form, Deputy Head or Headteacher) in the same message, marked urgent, stating the exact subject, board and the 20 August 2026 priority deadline if it is an A-level subject — a school is far more likely to act quickly on a specific, dated request than a vague one.
• If genuinely no one responds within a day or two and the priority window is closing, ask whether a sixth form or college your child is moving to can help liaise, since some sixth forms will contact a feeder school directly on a student’s behalf when a place is at stake.

For a GCSE student, the position is calmer: results are not out until Thursday 20 August 2026, and the only standard deadline — 24 September 2026 — falls well after most schools are back in September, so there is no need to chase anyone over the summer break itself. If a GCSE result affects a sixth form place, our separate guide on what to do on GCSE results day 2026 if you missed your grades covers the full first-steps process, resit options and sixth form negotiation in detail — this page focuses specifically on whether a review is worth requesting and what the data says about the outcome.

Frequently Asked Questions