Support for students in the Middle East

The portfolio of evidence route allows you to achieve results and progress with your next life steps if exams cannot take place. We only move schools to portfolio of evidence in exceptional circumstances where we have considered all other support options, but they cannot provide a route for students to achieve grades.

Your school will collect a portfolio of evidence for each student in each syllabus and submit it to us.

Each portfolio contains three substantial pieces of evidence which demonstrate the breadth and depth of your ability. By 'substantial’, we mean a piece of work that has taken at least one hour of concentrated work to complete. This is similar to the amount of work we use to determine an exam grade.

These three pieces of evidence can be completed at any time during your course, and can include:

• whole past papers covering the current syllabus content
• whole specimen papers from the current syllabus
• whole coursework prepared according to the current syllabus requirements
• work made up of questions selected from various past papers
• papers used as mock exams
• extended project work set by your school during the course of study
• tasks set by your school, such as essays, assignments, problems and practical tasks.

If you are taking Cambridge International A Level and did not sit the AS Level at the end of your first year of study, six substantial pieces of evidence are required.

Yes. Any work you complete during your course can be included in your portfolio of evidence. Once your teacher has selected the evidence that will be used, they will tell you which work they have chosen, and you will have the opportunity to give them feedback on their choices. Your teacher cannot simply select your best work. The evidence they choose must cover as broad a range of the syllabus content and skills as possible. Your teacher must also be sure that the evidence is your own unaided work.

Cambridge examiners mark the work using the Cambridge marking criteria and marking standard. Your teacher may have marked your work before submitting it to us; however, Cambridge examiners may give it a different mark that will be in line with the Cambridge marking standards.

Our examiners give a mark to each of the three pieces of evidence. We add these marks together to create a final mark for the portfolio. All evidence counts equally in its contribution to the final mark.

We use our examiners’ marks to calculate a final grade for each student for each syllabus they are taking.

Our University Pathways and Progression team works closely with universities worldwide, including recent engagement on our plans for the June 2026 series, so they understand our approach to assessment. Our portfolio of evidence is our established contingency route, ensuring fairness and consistency in the awarding of grades. It provides a robust and reliable alternative to traditional examinations by assessing students across a range of validated work.

Grades awarded using the portfolio of evidence route reflect the same standards, rigour and level of attainment as those achieved through external examinations. We are confident these will continue to be accepted by universities globally in the usual way, allowing students to progress to the next stage of their educational journey.

We know this can be an anxious time for students, particularly those intending to progress to higher education.

Please rest reassured that universities are aware of the process for awarding grades this year and will accept grades based on Portfolio of Evidence in the same way as grades achieved from exams.

We understand students may wish to contact their preferred universities once their results are released and so wanted to remind you of the following key dates and processes:

• Cambridge International A Level results will be released on 11 August.
• UK universities are under embargo and will not be able to discuss decisions with students until UK A Level results day on 13 August.

This means that while results will be available to students earlier, universities will only begin communicating decisions and updates to students on 13 August.

To support your conversations with students, we recommend (if you have not already) sharing the following UCAS resource to students who are applying to UK universities, which explains what happens on results day and what students can expect.

We appreciate the extraordinary efforts you and your colleagues are making under very difficult circumstances, and we thank you for your continued dedication to your students’ wellbeing and futures.

All our usual enquiry about results services are available and you should work with the exams officer at your school if you would like to request one of these.

In addition, we have a service which is only available for the portfolio of evidence – ‘Review of selection of evidence: Service 10’. This is a review of the choice of the pieces of evidence included in your portfolio.

As part of this enquiry, we will check that the evidence chosen for your portfolio meets our criteria for selection. This enquiry is available for all portfolio of evidence components. If you would like to request this enquiry, you should speak to your exams officer.

No. We appreciate the uncertainty around exams can be stressful for you and your families. Once you have been moved to the portfolio of evidence route, you will not switch back to exams.

If you are a private candidate entered through your school, the requirements for the amount of portfolio of evidence 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.

We understand that a wide range of events can impact students before and during an exam series, and so we have well-established measures in place to support you and your school.

If disruption occurs in your country or region, we will work closely with our regional colleagues to closely monitor the situation. We will make sure we are fully prepared to support you should the exam series be impacted in any way.

Please be reassured that we have procedures in place to support you if you can’t take an exam due to disruption or unforeseen circumstances, so that we can still award you an overall syllabus grade. We will work with your school to make sure you are not disadvantaged.

Special consideration is a post-exam adjustment that we make to a candidate's mark to make allowances for some adverse circumstances, for example illness, bereavement, temporary injury or disruption to an exam. Your school applies for special consideration on your behalf.

We are working closely with schools to make sure they are fully prepared to apply for any of our support measures, including special consideration, if needed.