The centre

For the purposes of the awarding bodies, your school/college is a centre. Each centre has a five-figure national centre number (eg 11223) which it is essential to use in all correspondence with the awarding bodies. This is different from the DfES number.

Centres are all different, and thus there is no ‘one size fits all’ where support is concerned. It is essential that, as the examinations officer, you are ICT-literate. You may be a full-time examinations officer, perhaps with an administrative background. Some centres have one or more assistant examinations officers. It is essential that you work well together as a team, communicate effectively and that responsibility areas and tasks are clear. It is very important that there is someone other than you in the centre who understands how to run an external exam, should you be ill or away, and that the staffing and secretarial help if needed are appropriate to the size of your centre and the volume of work.

Efficiency in running an examinations department is of paramount importance, and you will need to invent procedures to facilitate this. Some of these will evolve as you do the job, as you review and look for better ways of doing things. Tips to maximise efficiency and minimise errors include:

• File efficiently and carefully.
• Learn to discriminate between what is important and what is not.
• Keep a set of pre-printed laser labels with awarding body addresses.
• Print your internal forms on different colours so that you can recognise them easily.
• Ensure that you have checked all important details thoroughly.
• Ensure that you are aware of deadlines and have kept to them.
• Ensure that you have managed your workload to allow space for dealing with the pressure points.

You must remember, however, that effective administration is only a means to doing your job effectively, rather than an end in itself.