How to appeal your GCSE results: A step-by-step guide

If you open your GCSE results on Thursday 20 August 2026 and a grade looks wrong, you can ask the exam board to review it. The process is known as a Review of Marking (ROM), and it is the closest thing GCSEs have to a formal appeal.

The word "appeal" is slightly misleading. You cannot appeal a grade simply because you disagree with it. What you can do is ask the board to check that the marking was applied correctly, and if you are still unhappy after that, escalate the case to Ofqual. This guide walks through the process, the deadlines, the costs and what to expect.

An important thing to know upfront is that grades can go up, stay the same, or go down on review. So the decision to request one is not free, and not without risk.

You cannot request a review of marking yourself. The school submits the request on your behalf, through the exam board's online post-results services portal. That means your first conversation has to be with your subject teacher, head of department, or the exams officer.

The school will want to see the slip and discuss whether a review is likely to succeed. They will compare the grade to your mock results, your coursework (where applicable) and your performance in class through the year. If a grade is wildly out of line with all of those, that is a strong signal. If it is broadly in line but a touch below what you hoped, the school may suggest leaving it.

This is not the school being unhelpful. They are trying to protect you from a review that goes the wrong way. Have the conversation with an open mind.

Before committing to a review, you can request an Access to Scripts (ATS) copy of your marked paper. This is usually offered as a free or low-cost service through the exam board and gives you (and your teachers) a chance to look at the actual marking before deciding.

There are two flavours of ATS. A priority copy is returned quickly, usually within a few working days, and lets your school decide whether to request a priority review before the mid-September deadline. A standard copy takes longer but is fine if you are not in a rush.

Look at the script with your teacher. Where did marks come off? Were any answers left unmarked, or was there a question where the mark scheme is being applied very strictly? If yes, a review is more likely to succeed. If the marking looks reasonable and you simply did not pick up enough marks, a review is unlikely to help.

Before the exam board reviews anything, the JCQ appeals procedure now starts with a Centre Review. This is a formal internal stage where your school reviews the request itself before it goes anywhere near the exam board. The exams officer and a member of senior leadership look at the grounds for the request, confirm that there is a credible basis for thinking the marking was wrong, and decide whether to submit it to the board.

The Centre Review is not optional and not a substitute for a Review of Marking. It is the first formal step in the JCQ four-stage sequence: Centre Review, then Review of Marking by the board, then a formal Appeal to the board, then Ofqual's Exam Procedures Review Service (EPRS) as the final escalation.

In practice the Centre Review happens quickly, often the same week as results day, and is mostly procedural. But it does mean the school cannot simply forward a request to the board without checking it first. If you skip discussing the case with your school, the Centre Review will not happen and the Review of Marking cannot be submitted.

Once the Centre Review has signed off the request, your school submits the Review of Marking through the exam board's online post-results services portal. All four major boards (AQA, Pearson Edexcel, OCR and WJEC Eduqas) offer two main post-results services that matter for appeals. The names vary slightly by board, but the substance is the same. One thing to flag at GCSE level: Of the four major boards, only Pearson currently offers a priority review of marking for GCSEs. AQA, OCR and WJEC Eduqas offer the priority service at AS and A-Level but not for GCSE, so most GCSE reviews go through the standard service.

Service 1: Clerical re-check. The board checks that all parts of the paper were marked, the marks were totalled correctly, and the result was recorded accurately. It does not re-mark anything. Useful if you suspect an administrative error rather than a marking error.

Service 2: Review of marking. A senior examiner looks at the script and checks whether the original marking was applied correctly against the mark scheme. This is what most people mean when they say "appeal." The reviewer can change the mark up or down (or leave it unchanged) and the grade follows automatically from the new mark.

Post-results services run on tight deadlines, all set by JCQ and the boards. The two that matter most are the priority service deadline and the standard service deadline.

The priority service for review of marking (currently available at GCSE only through Pearson) is typically open for around four weeks after results day, with the deadline falling in mid-September 2026. Priority reviews are turned around in 15 calendar days, which is designed to fit before colleges and sixth forms confirm places.

The standard (non-priority) service runs longer and is typically open into late October. Standard reviews are returned within around 20 calendar days from receipt of the request. That means a standard review submitted in late September is usually back well before half term.

Schools track these deadlines and submit on your behalf. But you should make a decision quickly. If you think you want a review, raise it with the school in the first week after results day. Waiting until early September puts you at risk of missing the priority window.

Each board sets its own fees. Fees typically run from around £50 to £80 per script for a review of marking, with priority services costing more than standard. Clerical re-checks are cheaper. Access to Scripts is sometimes free, sometimes low-cost.

The fee is refunded if the grade changes as a result of the review. If the mark moves but the grade does not, the fee is not refunded.

In most cases the school pays the fee upfront and then asks the family to reimburse it. Some schools cover the cost themselves, particularly for students moving into their own sixth form. Confirm in writing who is paying before the request is submitted.

Reviews of marking can lower a grade. This is the single most important thing to understand before pressing go.

When a senior examiner reviews a script, they re-apply the mark scheme as it was meant to be applied. If the original marker was generous, the reviewer can take marks off. If the original marker was harsh, the reviewer can add them on. Either outcome is possible.

In practice, the majority of reviews leave the mark unchanged. A smaller number move up. A smaller number again move down. The boards publish these figures every year. If you are sitting one mark below a grade boundary, the risk and reward are different to sitting six marks below, where you have more room to move up and the same room to move down.

Talk through the specifics with your teacher before requesting the review.

If the Review of Marking does not change anything and you still believe the marking was incorrect, you can ask the school to lodge a formal Appeal to the exam board. This is the third formal stage in the JCQ sequence (after the Centre Review and the Review of Marking) and is genuinely an appeal in the formal sense.

A formal appeal does not re-mark the paper again. It asks the board to consider whether the marking and review processes were properly applied. The board reviews the way decisions were made, not the underlying answers. There is a separate fee for this stage, and again it is refunded if the appeal is upheld.

If the board's appeal decision still does not satisfy you, the final step is to escalate to Ofqual's Exam Procedures Review Service (EPRS). EPRS does not re-mark scripts or re-grade students. They review whether the exam board followed its own published procedures. This is the fourth and final stage in the official JCQ appeals sequence: Centre Review, Review of Marking, Appeal to the board, Ofqual EPRS.

There are several things the appeals process is not designed to fix.

You cannot appeal a grade simply because you disagree with it. There has to be a credible basis for thinking the marking was wrong. "I felt the exam went well" is not enough on its own.

You cannot appeal the mark scheme itself. If you think a question was unfairly set or a mark scheme was unreasonable, that is a matter for Ofqual and the boards, not for an individual appeal.

You cannot appeal someone else's grade. Reviews are only available for the student named on the script.

You cannot use the appeals process to ask for a regrade based on personal circumstances like illness or bereavement. Those are handled through a separate process called Special Consideration, which must be applied for during or immediately after the exam itself.

If something disrupted your exam (illness on the day, a bereavement during the exam period, a serious incident at the centre) the relevant process is Special Consideration, not appeals. Schools apply for Special Consideration shortly after the exam, and the board adjusts the marks before grades are finalised.

If you missed the Special Consideration window because no-one realised the circumstances at the time, contact the school as soon as you get your results. Boards will sometimes accept late applications where there is good reason, and adjustments can be made post-hoc in a small number of cases.