16 Jan 2026
On 8 January, the Department for Education announced the national pilot of the Education record app. This is intended to modernise how young people access their exam results once they have left school.
By using the app, young people will be able to enrol in their post-16 destination more easily, and have access to their results for life, providing employers with clear, accurate information on a job candidate’s education history without relying on paper certificates which can be easily lost.
The Education record is designed to support the transition from key stage 4 to 5 and to provide students with secure, digital access to their education records, including:
- Pupil name, date of birth and address
- Schools they have attended
- Official exam results for qualifications like GCSEs
- Support needs
At this stage, students can access their education record if their centre:
- Is state funded
- Returns a school census (student personal data will be sourced from school census data)
- Includes students on the Learning Record Service (LRS)
- Creates Unique Learner Numbers (ULN) (achievement data within the LRS is linked via a ULN)
Students will still go into centres on GCSE and Level 1 & 2 VTQ results day to receive their results and, if required, to discuss these with their teachers. Results will become available on the app from 11am on GCSE and Level 1 & 2 VTQ results day.
The role of exams officers
A key question for exams officers is understanding the role they play in supporting students throughout the process, from setting up accounts to viewing and, when necessary, updating information.
The position of the NAEO on the exams officer role is clear - to ensure that education records are created accurately, exams officers should not be vouching for students, and therefore, will not be best placed to deal with any subsequent queries from students.
Issuing of the education record
The main area where exams officers may be asked to support the process is in creating or issuing the education record. However, because this step requires a staff member to vouch for a student - meaning they know the student and can recognise them on sight - exams officers should not take on this task if they are unable to confirm the student’s identity on sight.
Centres must ensure that each education record is created accurately and that the process prevents any errors, including cases of impersonation. For this reason, a form tutor or head of year should be responsible for vouching for each student.
Dealing with errors, incorrect information and adding missing information
If students experience issues or have questions about the information in their education record, they should contact the member of staff who created the QR code used to issue their record in the app. Therefore, queries should be handled by the form tutor or head of year.
If this member of staff requires support, they should submit an enquiry via the Customer Help portal.
Key questions
What is the Education record app?
From summer 2026, students will be able to view a range of personal information including their GCSE results via the Education record app on their phones. Additional qualifications will be made available to the app as they are added to the LRS.
Currently, centres can volunteer to engage with the Education record app.
Why has it been introduced?
- To make it easier and quicker for young people to enrol in further education
- To reduce reliance on paper certificates, which can be lost or damaged
- To allow schools and colleges to see key information about incoming students, including whether they need to resit English or maths GCSEs, have special educational needs, or are eligible for free school meals
- To give employers faster access to verified education records
What information will students have access to within their Education record?
- Student name, date of birth and address
- Schools they have attended
- Official exam results for qualifications like GCSEs – this includes the overall grade and not component/unit marks
- Support needs
What steps should centres take to register their students for the Education record app?
Heads of centres received a letter from 12th January 2026 which included links to additional guidance and details of the steps which need to be taken to start using the service.
Students should be informed that the app only works on newer mobile phones (for example, Android from version 10 and on iOS from version 15).
The steps to take to manage the registration process can be seen in the appendix below.
Who is responsible for setting up students on the app?
Centres should identify staff members who can vouch for student identities - this must be a member of staff who is familiar with the student they are vouching for and can recognise them on sight. Class tutors or other teaching staff vouched in most cases during the pilot.
Members of staff who have access to student’s photo, for example on your student management information system, may also vouch for student identities. In a few cases (for example, centres with only a few students) this may be an exam officer, but in most instances, the process does not expect exams officers to be the staff member doing the vouching.
Which qualifications will be included within the app? Will iGCSEs be included?
Any qualification data added to the Learning Record Service (LRS) will be added to the app.
The current focus is on GCSEs as this is the main qualification area for year 11 students, but qualifications are continually added to the LRS and once included, they will be made available to the app.
How will independent centres manage this process as they do not create ULNs?
Unfortunately, independent schools are not in scope for this pilot. These schools do not return termly census data at an individual pupil-level to DfE, and this data is required to populate the education record.
There are a range of schools and individuals (including private candidates) who might not be able to benefit from the Education record at this stage, but the intention is to learn more about this during the pilot. If you would be interested in being involved in future user research, please visit this page of the website: Education record Rollout: Schools Interest in User Research
If students in Year 10 sit an examination, will this be available via the app?
For the pilot, and as this is the first full year of the project, the focus is upon year 11 students. If any of these students sat an examination in year 10 then this data will be made available in the app when the student receives their record.
Functionality has been added within the Issue Education Service for a school to add missing students to their student list. This is primarily to address the issue of new students not appearing on the service if they joined after the school census data was returned. Schools should be able to share the education record with year 10 students through this functionality.
How will the process be managed if a student requests an enquiry about their result? How will this show on the app on results day and when/if the grade is amended?
Students should inform the sixth form, college or provider they are transferring to that an enquiry into one, or more, of their grades has been made. If required, this information can be verified between centres.
Subsequently, if there is a change of grade, the results on the app will be updated once the data is transferred from the awarding organisation.
What if a mistake is identified within a student’s Education record app, such as a missing grade or unexpected qualification?
If a student's results show as incomplete in the app or there is a delay to seeing their results on the app, they should use their results slip/documentation provided by the centre as evidence of their results.
If there is a qualification in a student's app that they believe should not be there, they should contact the centre where they sat their examinations. They should use the results documentation provided by the centre as evidence of their results.
Resources
Appendix
Registering your students for the Education record app
Please note that students must scan the QR code using the camera feature within the Education record app. This will, very likely, require allowing camera access to the app. The QR code must not be scanned using the phone’s camera app.
