Examinations officers play a pivotal role in schools and colleges in the administration, management and conducting of examinations. Exams office staff support teaching colleagues and students. This role is sometimes known as exam manager, exam officer or exam administrator.
What’s involved
An examinations officer’s role covers:
- Liaising with a wide range of internal and external stakeholders, including students, parents, Heads of Departments, Heads of Years, teachers, reception staff, site staff, IT staff and awarding organisations
- Being aware of examination changes each academic year
- Managing invigilators. This includes training new invigilators and updating existing invigilators on rules and regulation changes on an annual basis
- Updating examination-related policies
- Managing the examination entry process, including gathering information from teaching staff to ensure that students’ examination entries are made correctly and on time, making amendments/withdrawals etc.
- Managing the examination preparation process. This includes preparing examination timetables for students and staff; creating seating plans for each examination room; briefing candidates, staff and parents; receiving, checking and securely storing confidential examination materials; administering internal assessment etc.
- Supporting the process relating to access arrangements (for example; supporting the SENCo in making applications, rooming, training invigilators, managing emergency access arrangements etc.)
- Managing examination days in accordance with awarding body regulations, including preparing for each exam day, starting an examination, dealing with emergencies, irregularities and malpractice, ending the examination, collecting the examination scripts and packing and dispatching examination scripts
- Contingency planning
- Managing examination results. This includes accessing results electronically/downloading results from awarding body secure sites and preparing for results to be disseminated to each student/candidate
- Dealing with requests and administering post-results services
- Issuing examination certificates
Click here to discover support roles for schools.
Skills and experience you will need
- Good organisational and planning skills
- Good interpersonal and communication skills with a range of stakeholders
- Ability to prioritise workload and meet deadlines
- An understanding of multiple IT systems
- Ability to work under pressure
Entry requirements
There is no specific qualification or experience requirement. Individual schools/colleges decide what qualifications and experience applicants need to have, so it is important to check locally. Some may employ people based on their experience and potential alone.
Useful links
Have a look at the examinations role profiles under the administrative & management job family to find out more about the different levels you could work at.
The Exams Office is the largest exams officer support organisation in the UK offering comprehensive support to new and experienced exams officers. They have developed template job descriptions for exams officers and invigilators.
Qualification Wales (support in Wales)