Results day: what the grade means, and what you can do about it

6 min read · updated 12 October 2026

How results reach you

Edexcel release results to centres, and your school passes them on. Online access runs through ResultsPlus Direct, using a username and centre number your school issues — you cannot create that login yourself, and nobody outside the centre can give it to you.

Results are released from a set time on results day, usually early UK time, which lands at different local times depending on where you are. Your exams officer will tell you exactly when.

Reading the result

For International GCSE you get a grade per subject. For International A Level you get a grade per unit as well as the overall subject grade, because the units are assessed separately — which is more information than it looks, and worth reading properly. A grade built from one weak unit and several strong ones points somewhere very specific.

Your school can usually see the mark alongside the grade. If you were close to a boundary, that is the first thing to find out, because it determines whether anything is worth doing next.

Remarks: what they are and are not

A remark — formally a review of marking — asks an examiner to check that the mark scheme was applied correctly to your script. It is not a second opinion on the quality of your work, and it is not a fresh marking from scratch.

Marks can go up, down, or stay the same, and the result is final. This is the part students most often do not realise. A remark is worth requesting when you were a mark or two below a boundary, or when a result is sharply out of line with everything else you have done. It is rarely worth it when the mark sits comfortably inside a grade.

Requests go through your school, not from you directly, and there is a deadline — usually within a few weeks of results. There is a fee, often refunded if the grade changes. Ask your exams officer on results day if you think it applies, because the window is shorter than people expect.

Seeing your script

You can ask for a copy of your marked script, and it is the most useful thing in this whole process even when the grade is fine. Reading your own answers next to the mark scheme shows you exactly where marks went — information no amount of revision advice can give you, and the clearest guide there is if you are resitting or moving on to the next level.

Resits

Edexcel run three series a year, so a resit rarely means waiting twelve months. For International A Level, resitting one unit is straightforward and the better result counts towards your total. For International GCSE, you resit the subject.

Before entering, ask the question that matters: what will be different this time? A resit with the same preparation produces roughly the same mark. A resit after working through the papers properly, marking them honestly and fixing the specific things that cost marks, is a different proposition entirely — and this site holds every paper you would need for that.

If it went badly

Grades feel final on the day and look much less final a year later. Universities and employers take resits, alternative routes exist, and plenty of people arrive where they intended by a path that did not run through one particular August morning.

Talk to your school before making a decision in the first 48 hours. The options are usually wider than they appear while the result is still raw.