Teachers are not required to reveal GCSE and A-level teacher assessments and rank orders before official exam results are announced, the Information Commissioner’s Office has said.

Requests made after the results are announced will need to be dealt with within one month of receipt of the request, the ICO added in an announcement made on social media today.

The ICO said it published the updated guidance after it received queries about whether this year’s process will still be covered by the exam script exemption, which means students don’t have the right to request data held about them under usual data privacy laws.

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GCSEs and A levels 2020: Disclosing information about teacher assessments

This means that students won’t have the right to get copies of their answers from mock exams or assignments ahead of results day as the exam script exemption this year will apply to the information used to award students’ grades - such as teacher assessments and rank orders.

Teachers - the exam scripts exemption will still apply to the information used to award students’ grades this year. We’ve updated our guidance to include more detail on how this will work. Read more here: https://t.co/K3yA11W5UG #edchat pic.twitter.com/0M639VBS6F

- ICO (@ICOnews) July 29, 2020

This is the ICO guidance:

• Teachers don’t have to provide a response to requests from students for information about their provisional grades, including the teacher assessments and/or rank orders, until after the results are published.
• If teachers receive a request from a student before the official results are announced, they need to respond to it either within five months of receiving the request or within 40 days of announcing the exam results, whichever date is earliest.
• Requests made after the results are announced need to be dealt with by one month after the request.
• If requested information about rank order could reveal information about other students, teachers will have to decide whether it’s reasonable to disclose this information rather than withhold it.

The full guidance can be found here.