Portfolio of evidence FAQs

If we decide to move your school to the portfolio of evidence route, your exams officer will receive an email from us confirming the switch. You must continue to make entries as normal until we move your entries to the portfolio of evidence route. Until then your entries may appear as normal on Direct. Once we move your entries to the portfolio of evidence route, you will see the new entry option on Direct. We will not be issuing updated statements of entry following this change.

No, you must make all entries by 17 April (at 23:59 UTC+1). We cannot accept very late entries.

If your school is in a country or region that we have switched to the portfolio of evidence route, you no longer need to:

• apply to us for access arrangements. However, you should give appropriate access arrangements, such as extra time or enlarged copies of the paper, to eligible students when they complete past papers, mock exams and work made up of questions from past papers that you intend to use as evidence of their performance for school-assessed grades. This will ensure the work reflects the candidate’s usual way of working. We recommend that you maintain records of any access arrangements that were used throughout the year and will be used in any mock exams. You must be confident that any evidence of candidate’s need supports the need for these arrangements. If you would like us to review a sample of the evidence of candidate’s need, we would be happy to do so
• submit any coursework, speaking tests or other non-examined assessments to us. Instead, you should retain and use this work as evidence
• submit internally assessed marks for moderated components on Direct
• submit work samples for internally or externally assessed components using Submit for Assessment
• return candidate scripts to us. Please recycle any despatch and identification labels you may receive from us.

However, there are some tasks you still need to carry out:

• You should continue to submit entries as if you were sitting exams. We will move these entries to the portfolio of evidence route
• You should submit forecast grades via Cambridge International Direct. The forecast grades are not to support the evidence and should be awarded as if candidates were going to sit exams
• Where a carry-forward mark will be used, you must provide candidates’ previous entry details as you would if they were sitting an exam. If you have Cambridge International AS & A Level candidates using carry-forwards that have been entered for a ‘best of both’ option, those candidates will now be entered for the staged route using portfolio of evidence
• You should submit attendance registers using Submit for Assessment when you upload the candidates’ evidence
• You must follow the regulations in sections 4.3 and 4.4 of the Cambridge Handbook for receiving and storing confidential exam materials. If you receive any confidential exam materials from us, you must not open the materials and you must keep them in your secure storage until 24 hours after the Key Time for the exam. Exam materials must not be used towards the evidence for school-assessed grade

You can find information in our Carry forward and portfolio of evidence factsheet about:

• Carrying forward non-exam assessments. This includes information about carrying forward marks for coursework and speaking tests.
• Carrying forward Cambridge International AS Level to A Level. This is known as the ‘staged route’ to Cambridge International A Level. Here we explain our approach to carrying forward AS Level marks and grades for our different assessment approaches (exams and portfolio of evidence).

The factsheet also includes information about entry options for Cambridge International A Level Mathematics (9709) and Further Mathematics (9231), as well as advice to centres with candidates entered for best of both options for these syllabuses.

It is not possible to carry forward any portfolio of evidence components to a future series. This includes the portfolio of evidence speaking endorsement for Cambridge IGCSE English as a Second Language (0510/60 and 0993/60).

The only permitted exception to this carry-forward rule is carrying forward an AS Level portfolio of evidence as part of a staged route to Cambridge International A Level (see section 1.2 of our Carry forward and portfolio of evidence factsheet).

If you have Cambridge International AS & A Level candidates who are entered for a ‘best of both’ option, we will move those candidates to a staged entry route using portfolio of evidence. If you want these candidates to be entered for a linear, rather than staged, entry option, you must complete the following steps. Please note – if you move to a linear entry option, you must submit evidence to us for both AS Level and A Level:

Before 17 April 2026:

1. Amend the entry on Direct. You can do this yourself until 17 April 2026 (at 23:59 UTC+1). We will credit the late entry fees back to you. Please contact us if you have any questions about amending your entries.
2. Email info@cambridgeinternational.org to tell us you have amended one or more entry options and include the name(s) and candidate number(s) of the affected candidate(s).
3. Submit evidence to us using Submit for Assessment.

After 17 April 2026:

1. Email info@cambridgeinternational.org to tell us which candidate(s) you would like to move from a staged to a linear entry option. We will make the amendment(s) for you. You will not be charged very late entry fees.

Submit evidence to us using Submit for Assessment.

Yes. If you have private candidates who are entered through your centre, as far as possible, you must treat them in the same way as school candidates. The requirements for the amount of work, the types of work, and the coverage of the current syllabus content and assessment objectives are the same. The requirement for confidence in the authenticity of the work is also the same.

See our guide to ‘Collecting a portfolio of evidence’ for more information about private candidates.

There is no requirement for the three pieces of evidence to be a direct match to the exam components in the syllabus. You can choose any three pieces of work which meet the criteria in this document, and which give broad coverage of the current syllabus content and assessment objectives.  For example, if a syllabus has two components, you could focus one piece of evidence on each component, and then the third piece of evidence could be a teacher-set task covering both components. 

Alternatively, you could provide evidence for one of the components in its entirety and then divide the work for the other component to create the two further pieces of evidence. Where you do this, each separate piece of work must take the candidate at least one hour to produce.

If you have already completed speaking tests in the June 2026 series, you can submit these as part of a candidate portfolio. However, you must not attempt to conduct any new speaking tests using June 2026 confidential materials.

As an alternative, where you have recordings of mock speaking tests, you can use these as part of the portfolio. If you do not have recordings of mock speaking tests, you can either use a past paper or a paper that you have created yourself. Both can be under one hour in duration.

Any speaking tests that you submit as part of a portfolio count as one of the three required pieces of evidence. You do no need to use speaking tests as a fourth piece of evidence.

Candidates can complete past papers, or papers you have created yourself, at home. The candidate’s teacher must be confident that the work completed at home is of a consistent standard with the candidate’s other work. 

Where the work has been set specifically for assessment purposes, and the candidate knows that this piece of work could be used in the portfolio, then centre supervision is required. For example, this could be through the camera of a laptop to confirm that the work is the candidate’s own, and that no assistance has been given. 

We recommend that assessments completed remotely are recorded, so that the recording can be reviewed in cases of suspected malpractice.  The conditions under which the work was completed must be clearly explained in the rationale document.

Yes. If your candidate has completed coursework for the June 2026 series but does not move to the portfolio of evidence route and instead defers to the November 2026 series, they can use the coursework they have already prepared.

Once your candidate has used their coursework as part of a submitted portfolio of evidence, they cannot re-use it again in a future series.

You can submit candidates’ non-exam assessment work, such as coursework, for us to mark as part of their portfolio of evidence if we have not previously marked or moderated it.

Work prepared for a previous exam series must have been kept secure and the candidate must not have had any opportunity to change it. The work must not have previously been submitted to Cambridge and must meet the current syllabus requirements.

Candidates cannot carry forward any marks from non-exam assessments, such as coursework or speaking tests, to count towards a portfolio of evidence (e.g. coursework marks we awarded in a previous series).

Work submitted as evidence for a portfolio of evidence in a previous series cannot be resubmitted.

If you are following the portfolio of evidence route and your candidates will not be sitting exams, you must still follow the regulations in sections 4.3 and 4.4 of the Cambridge Handbook for receiving and storing confidential exam materials. If you receive any confidential exam materials from us, you must not open the materials and you must keep them in your secure storage until 24 hours after the Key Time for the exam. 

For any exams where you would normally download confidential materials from Digital File Despatch or the School Support Hub, you may still receive an email from us at the Key Time for a particular exam. If you are not running exams then you must not download or print any materials, such as ICT source files. If you or anyone else in your centre mistakenly downloads or prints confidential materials that you do not need because you are not running exams, you must follow the regulations in sections 4.3.1 and 4.4 of the Cambridge Handbook.

As students’ work will have been marked by Cambridge examiners, there will be opportunity to challenge results through an enquiry about results service.

We cannot give feedback to schools about the pieces of evidence to include in the portfolio. The evidence included is at your discretion. There is no requirement for the three pieces of evidence to be a direct match to the exam components in the syllabus. You can choose any three pieces of work which meet the criteria in our guidance, and which give broad coverage of the syllabus content and assessment objectives.

Our ‘Collecting a portfolio of evidence’ guidance includes examples of some problems with the choice of evidence that we have seen in previous series.

No, we do not consider this as part of the marking process.

If we have moved your centre to the portfolio of evidence route, some of the usual aspects of special consideration do not apply. The most significant difference is that we cannot generate a calculated assessment for a missing piece of evidence. This is because the portfolio of evidence entry is a single component with 100% weighting. There are no other components upon which to base a calculation, and so ’absent for an acceptable reason’ is not available for the portfolio of evidence route. If a candidate is absent when a piece of evidence is being generated, or the evidence goes missing, gets damaged or corrupted, or there is otherwise a shortfall in a piece of evidence, then you should replace it. If this is not possible then you should withdraw the candidate.

If a candidate is affected by adverse circumstances while producing one or more of their pieces of evidence, you must try to replace that evidence. If this is not possible you can apply for ‘present but disadvantaged’ in the usual way.

You must use our Special consideration and malpractice guide and the Cambridge Handbook if you are moved to the portfolio of evidence route.

You cannot use confidential material to produce evidence for the portfolio. It is live exam material and can only be used by schools sitting exams.

You should have a delegated Submit for Assessment administrator in your centre, this may be your Exams Officer or it could be someone else. This person can manage accounts for other colleagues at your centre and set up accounts for them. Teachers should have an account set up with the ‘Submit Teacher’ role.