This summer, tens of thousands of GCSE students will receive their results via a new smartphone app.
The Education Record app is being trialled by the government in Greater Manchester and the West Midlands amongst 95,000 students before being rolled out nationwide.
It’s hoped that the app will help save up to £30m a year for college admissions teams, but school leaders have voiced that students and schools will need “seamless support” to ensure the app runs as smoothly as it should.
Students taking part in the pilot will also be able to collect their paper results on results day (Thursday 21st August) from 08:00 as usual, with digital results dropping on the app at 11:00 the same day.
The government’s vision is to digitalise every student’s exam results and certificates into one online record.
The new app will mean further education colleges no longer have to hire extra staff to photocopy results or chase missing paperwork from prospective students.
After conducting a local trial at his school last spring, Mark Giles, principal at The Hathershaw College in Oldham, said the app was “accurate and verifiable”.
At the Schools and Academies Show 2024, Sir Ian Bauckham discussed the steps being taken to digitalise assessments and results in Ofqual’s ‘What’s next for assessment?’ talk. He said that digital assessments will need to be rolled out incrementally and monitored closely to ensure digitisation is implemented fairly.
Pepe Di’Iasio, general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders (ASCL) also called for the use of digital technology in education to go even further.
He also said exams themselves should be digitised, with pen and paper exams currently creating a “massive burden” for schools who are required to securely transport thousands of exam papers.
He added that the government should “invest in creating the infrastructure schools and colleges need to make this a reality”.
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