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Guide to Exam Results (Welsh schools)

Uploading exam results to GO 4 Schools provides schools with immediate access to headline performance measures and a complete analysis of exam results, including breakdowns by focus groups. Below are a few hints and tips that may help schools to get the most from their data and make the process as easy as possible.

Locking subjects

Changes may be made to a school timetable in the summer term because

  • Students may no longer be timetabled when exams start
  • Students may be taken off roll before the end of term
  • Some schools make timetable changes for students to start next year’s course during the summer term

By default, subjects will disappear from GO 4 Schools when they are removed from the timetable in the MIS, and students will disappear from groups if they are no longer timetabled for a subject. This is often not desirable as it means the data collected in GO 4 Schools during the year is no longer visible. The facility to lock subjects in GO 4 Schools can be used to circumvent this. When locked, the students, teachers and groups belonging to the locked subjects in GO 4 Schools do not change even if the school has made changes to the timetable in the MIS.

To assist schools, all subjects in all years are locked in May of each academic year (notification of the exact date will be via a message on the GO 4 Schools site). This means that the group membership and the teacher attached to the group will remain as it is prior to this date, regardless of any changes that are made to the timetable in your MIS. School managers are able to lock and unlock subjects via the Feed Rules page, if a year group or subject is unlocked it will continue to update based on the nightly feed. School managers can also  add/remove/move students from groups in locked subjects using the group membership tool, this is an instant change when made to the subject/groups. Locking subjects only freezes the membership of groups within a subject; markbooks and reports continue to operate as before.

Please see the guidance on Locking subjects which gives more information and details of how to use the group membership tool.

Preparation for exam results day

The summer term is an ideal time to review your data and set-up in GO 4 Schools, to ensure smooth upload and analysis of your exam results in the summer.

  • Check that you have the correct QADs attached to markbooks so that grades will be counted correctly in the analysis and for the performance tables. School Managers can view the qualifications by selecting Curriculum > Analysis setup > Subjects and Qualifications. Things to check include:
    1. Check that you have the correct qualification assigned to the correct subject.
    2. Y10 – Y13 check there are no discount codes missing for qualifications that contribute to performance tables. If there are missing discount codes, this can be easily rectified by editing the markbook and then changing the qualification (please note, the process is only possible if you are selecting a qualification with the same grading scheme. Where the grading scheme is different you will need to download the whole of the markbook and then re-upload into a new markbook). Choose qualification (DO NOT reset your markbook) searching for the relevant qualification. There are a few subjects such as Art & Design where the same QAD is used for several qualifications (e.g. Fine Art, Photography, Graphics) but the discount code will vary.
    3. Y12 & Y13 – check that you have the correct qualification. A common error is to have an AS qualification for students studying an A2 qualification.
    4. Ensure you have included both maths and maths-numeracy, and English and English literature. If maths-numeracy or English literature are not being taught until Y11, you may wish to copy the grades from maths into a markbook for numeracy (and similarly for literature) in order that your headline performance figures are correct.
    5. Check that the full science pathway is present for all students. i.e., If students are doing single sciences there needs to be a markbook for each qualification; biology, chemistry and physics. We advise using whole grades for the double science GCSE as there are 15 grades for this qualification. Using fine grades would create 45 grades which is too many to set sensible grade boundaries.
    6. If you are using a school-scheme for KS3 English, maths, science or Welsh, using the corresponding version of the scheme ensures that headline measures appear on your year group statistics.
  • Create a markbook for any non-timetabled subjects for which you want subject analysis to be available. A separate markbook can be created using a feed rule Manage > System > View feed rules > Add one or more students to a group in a new or existing subject.
  • BTECs – Ensure that there is a separate markbook for each version of the qualification that students will be awarded. For example, if some students will be awarded a ‘First Certificate’ and some a ‘First Award’, these will need to be set up as a separate markbooks if you want to upload the results by subject name. A separate markbook can be created using a feed rule Manage > System > View feed rules > Move one or more students from one group to another in a new or existing subject. If you don’t set up a separate markbook, you will need to upload the results for the alternative qualification using the QAD, which will ensure the results are included in the overall statistics, but you will not be able to see the subject / group analysis for this subject.
  • Ensure you have uploaded results for any early entries taken in a previous exam season. 
  • By default, students will be included in the key statistics if they have an enrolment status of Single Registration or Main - Dual Registration. Students will not be included if they have an enrolment status of Subsidiary - Dual Registration or Guest. If you want to override this functionality and force the inclusion or removal of a particular student from the key statistics, school managers can do this using the system student attribute Student statistics rule. For example, if a student joined the school after PLASC and you want to include them in the stats, or you want to exclude a FEWBES student that arrived part way through Year 11. 
    1. People > Student attributes > Student Statistics rule. Click manage values and if there is not already a set of values for the current academic year, add a new set of values for the current academic year. For the relevant student, select “Included in stats” or “Excluded from stats” from the drop down to override the default functionality.
  • Create 2-3 spare student attributes that can be used for analysis of key groups post results and academic year roll over, as it is not possible to create new attributes in previous academic years.
  • Consider if you want to lock projected grades. Some schools choose to lock projected grades to be able to track the accuracy of teacher predictions.
    1. Curriculum > Tracking setup > Grades & residual settings > Change Projected grade/level to be editable by ‘No one’.
  • You may like to warn staff, parents, and students that they will not be able to access GO 4 Schools on the results embargo day(s).

Results Embargo Day

  • As with your MIS, you will need to place an embargo on access to exam results on GO 4 Schools so that only the staff classified as School managers will be able to see results and analysis, until you remove the embargo.
    1. Manage > Administration > Contact Details & Settings > Settings
    2. Select checkbox for ‘Block access for all students, parents and staff except for school managers’.
    3. If you do not want students and parents to be able to view results as soon as the embargo is lifted, use People > Access control & data sharing > Parent/Student access to turn off visibility and reselect when you are ready to enable access again. You may also wish to disable visibility of the actual grade column for parents and students.
  • Extract results from your MIS – as a .csv file. You may be required to make the following changes to your file prior to upload:
    1. Add in qualifications that have not been uploaded into your MIS, e.g. BTECs.
    2. Check that the grades match the grade types expected in GO 4 Schools for non-GCSE qualifications e.g. Cambridge Nationals L2P needs the full format - Level 2 Pass.
    3. Change subject headings to match the name of the subject in GO 4 Schools.
    4. If students have taken exams for which there is not a matching markbook in GO 4 Schools, results can be uploaded using the QAD instead of the subject name.
    5. Check that you have your .csv file in the correct format. See Grade file formats and then use the Grade file conversion process to convert the file ready for uploading.

Uploading Actual Grades

Exam results should be uploaded into the ‘Actual’ grade type. More information about the upload process can be found in the Uploading actual grades article (or video), or on the Actual grade upload page Curriculum > Grade types > Actual. 

  • Where you have suitable qualifications attached to subjects in GO 4 Schools, you can upload using the GO 4 Schools subject name. 
  • If a student has taken an exam and they are not a member of a subject with the correct qualification attached in GO 4 Schools, you can upload the exam result using the QAD code in place of a GO 4 Schools subject name. You will not have access to subject statistics where you upload using QAN codes that are not attached to a subject in GO 4 Schools, but the exam results WILL count in all the year group statistics. You can view a video on this process here.
  • Please note, where you are uploading results using a QAD code for a qualification which can have a different discount code depending on which syllabus was studied, you will need to use the qualification code generated by GO 4 Schools. Please see the qualifications with syllabuses page. If you do not upload using the correct syllabus, the qualification will not count in your statistics.

Analysis is complete as soon as the grades have all uploaded successfully. The results will be seen on the year group and subject pages as well as in the other analysis tools such as the explorers, ribbons, flight path charts, etc. The grades will also be visible in markbooks and on the student and parent pages depending on the settings for Actual Grade type (Curriculum > Tracking setup > Grades & residual settings).

  • You may wish to consider changing the preferred progress grade in the ‘Tracking & Progress preferences’ table to track on the actual grade for exam year groups. Ribbons and ‘At a glance charts’ will then display actual grades by default. You will still be able to choose to display multiple sets of ribbons by selecting ‘choose ribbons’ on each page where ribbons appear.
  • Alternatively, you can use the ‘Exam focus’ button on subject pages, which then displays the actual grade as the preferred tacking grade.
  • The grade settings (Curriculum > Tracking setup > Grades & residual settings) allow schools to choose how actual grades are included in target and projected grades. These settings determine the default for the school and can only be changed by school managers. However, individual users can override these default settings on a page by page basis using the ‘Change...’ tool shown below, which appears at the top of the year group statistics.

  • Where the influence of actual grades is included, GO 4 Schools will compare any actual grades with the grade type, and choose the higher value. For example, if a target grade has been set at “C”, but the student has an actual grade of “B”, GO 4 Schools will use the higher of the two values in the statistics (as the student will never get less than a “B”). If you wish to exclude actual grades from the statistics, you can use the tool above.

Results Day

  • Remove the embargo on access to exam results enabling all staff to see results and analysis
    1. Manage > Administration > Contact Details & Settings > Settings
    2. Unselect checkbox for ‘Block access for all students, parents and staff except for school managers’.
    3. If you turned off visibility to parents and students using People > Access control & data sharing > Parent/Student access remember to re-enable this when you are ready for parents and students to view results.

We recommend you take a snapshot of the results, and if you are using the report module we have an exam results template for publishing on GO 4 Schools.