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Exams Team

The Exam Teams at Sussex Downs College are responsible for ensuring the effective administration of all the processes associated with examinations and assessments which is now a ‘whole year’ process with 800 different exams taking place involving some 11000 student entries. Yet it is still the GCSE and A level results in August that thrust the teams to the forefront of College activity.

The teams in Lewes and Eastbourne liaise with a wide range of organisations and individuals regarding exam arrangements. The issues they cover include accommodation and special requirements, invigilation (including training), moderation, and publication of results together with cascading all exam related information to staff and students.

Fi Taylor, Cross College Examinations Manager said: “We arrange for entries, registrations and results to be processed in accordance with the regulations and requirements of all the awarding bodies that we work with, an amazing 33 different exam boards.

“When it comes to the actual exams we ensure that adequate materials are available for examinations sessions and that all examinations are conducted in a proper way as required by the awarding bodies. Security of the papers is always a key issue and a topic we take very seriously.

“On a day to day basis we field numerous queries from students, parents, tutors, and external clients including employers and other schools and colleges. These queries include issues surrounding lost certificates, appeals, statements of results and statements of entry.

“I am very proud of my team, they are always able to step up a gear to cope with periods of intense pressure and meet various deadlines which are set. Overall this has been a challenging year. The severe weather at the beginning of the year threatened many exams, but to their credit the teams got through the snow to minimize the number of exam cancellations.

“We have a dedicated area on the College website supplying information on contact details at both the Lewes and Eastbourne sites, together with dates and deadlines, timetables and various forms.

“And finally there a few things we don’t do, although it is often assumed we do, for example we do not invigilate exams, we do not write the papers, we do not mark the papers and we do not set the exam dates.”

Final preparations are now being made for A level results day on Thursday August 19 with GCSE results released on Tuesday 24 August.