Terms

The information below and on our registration form (for prospective candidates) and the information in our Candidate Handbook (for registered candidates) makes up our full Terms and Conditions.

We aim to provide an excellent service to you which is fair, transparent and meets the highest standards. We have a fantastic team to support this aim, but we also need your support to make the whole thing happen smoothly.

1. Your Accurate Information

We can help you better if you give us all the relevant information at the beginning of your query. We appreciate things change, but make sure we have the most accurate information you have at hand at the time of your initial query and (if we progress your query to application and registration stages), later stages.

Before you register, you will already have been made aware of the exam fees and other conditions, so be thorough and honest on the form to ensure you do not incur additional charges.

Enter CIC cannot be held responsible for mistakes, omitted / incomplete information or misspellings on your submitted form. Additional charges apply if we need to change your details once submitted to the exam board.

2. Keep up to date

Please make sure you’re aware of the latest updates, expectations and instructions from your exam board in relation to your qualification(s). Your Candidate Handbook (received from us after your registration is approved) is another important source of information as are the emails you may receive from us over the course of your journey. Please ensure you remain informed as mistakes and amendments may be costly or even impossible, depending on the conditions at the time.

3. Behaviour

We exist to improve people’s lives, options and aspirations. We deal with thousands of people over a typical exam year or series and every person deserves our time and attention. Poor behaviour by candidates (and associated representatives) in communications, online and in person is disrespectful to us and will not be tolerated. If your poor behaviour risks the mental health and wellbeing of our staff we will disengage all communications immediately, thoroughly and without explanation. Any fees paid up to the unacceptable event may be subject to reasonable charges for work we have already carried out.

Threatening, abusive behaviour, or behaviour which places unreasonable and excessive demands on staff will not be tolerated and may be reported to the Awarding Bodies and appropriate authorities. Anyone who displays poor behaviour in our buildings will be expelled, may be reported to the appropriate authority and may be subject to further investigation.

4. Privacy Notice

Our data privacy statement is available here.
https://www.entercic.org/privacy-statement

5. Documents and ID

Please use the same documents uploaded on your registration form to validate your ID and attendance at exams. You are required to bring your Photo ID with you to all of your scheduled exams, including and mock exams you book with us.

For those undergoing gender reassignment or who identify differently to the gender on their official ID documents, please ensure you update your ID with your exam board and with us in good time (8 weeks minimum) in order to be referred to and identified as your true or reassigned identity.

We will only refer to you as stated on the official documentation in our possession at the time of the exam. We mean no disrespect by this and remain a full ally in your endeavours to express who you are, but we must apply a consistent policy of identification as required by the regulator.

Sorry, but we can’t do your admin for you. We don’t contact schools, local authorities, private agencies, or current learning providers, etc  to seek the documents you are required to present to us yourself (they may not provide them to us, anyway, due to data protection laws). We are always available to offer support and guidance as part of the process, but you must make the contacts and arrangements directly with the relevant bodies or individuals.

6. Exams and Registration

Please do your homework (!) before making your application to register with us. We have a great team who can help you through the tricky parts of registering for your exam, but the more information you have, the greater help we can be.

This also means that you should ensure that the exam you wish to sit, suits your needs and that you have made enough of an effort in your studies to be in a position to sit your exam confidently.

If you don’t have a UCI or ULN number because you’ve never been in formal education, we can facilitate this for you, just ask us for details.

You will be asked to pay a non-refundable deposit, which covers the reasonable work we have to carry out in order to progress your registration. This covers the required administration, communications and management of information in internal and external systems.

This is all you need to pay to secure your place in our exam centre and give you peace of mind. We will forward you an invoice for the remaining amount later in the process.

7. Codes and Learning

Take the guess work out of registering for the right exam by making sure you check your exam board’s website (links are at the bottom of our home page) to get the correct exam code and related information. If you’re unsure about anything, don’t struggle – just ask us, we can point you in the right direction, but we’ll never ‘tell’ you what you should be sitting – that’s for you to establish.

If you get a course code or other subject/learning based information wrong, we will try to help where we can, but you should be aware that costs are placed on exam centres to change information about your exam entry after you have been registered, so you may have to pay additional fees to correct information. Sometimes, however, it’s not possible to make changes. The only option you have is either sit the exam or withdraw and re-register for the correct exam, for which there will be additional charges (for withdrawal and for re-registering). However, depending on the exam board’s deadlines, it may not be possible to re-register for your exam in the exam series (time of year) you expected to sit it. This is particularly relevant to those sitting exams in order to obtain a university place, so please check and double check your information.

It is not always possible for entry fees, or other fees or payments to be refunded if you have made a mistake, changed your mind or otherwise intend not to sit the exam you’re registered for.

8. Access Arrangements

Please visit our Access Arrangements page for further information.

We support Access Arrangements in our exam centre. However, no legislation or sector-based regulation requires us to do so.

Subsequent to submitting documentation, some final approvals are not made by the exam centre, we simply implement the AA as validated by the SENCO and approved by the associated exam board. 

There is no additional charge for AA exam services, but you should expect additional fees to be applicable for using our (or your own choice of) qualified SENCO, if applicable. You may also incur other charges from third parties in order to obtain the correct documentation from them. These additional costs are yours alone and can not be recovered from Enter CIC.

Please note that gathering this information can be a time-consuming process, so please apply in good time. As we are at the mercy of you and your information providers and also exam board decisions, we can’t guarantee that provision for AA can be made in time for your exam, or at all.

Sometimes, if we feel your application is unlikely to succeed due to there being insufficient information / evidence, we may not take AA requests further (check out the  process here). Our decision whether to accept a particular application is final and is non-negotiable.

As we are bearing the full cost of catering for Access Arrangements in our exam centre. Our exam centre staff may make their own assessments, too. This may mean that:

• Your arrangements are considered in line with our ability to provide them.
• Where no formal evidence exists, we may not be able to provide the ‘preferences’ you expect. You should choose another exam centre.
• We may not register you at all, or we may not progress your application/registration.
• We reserve the right to make our own assessments. 

To note: Private Candidate Exam Centres do not have to support private candidates seeking Access Arrangements (AA). The provisions of the Equality Act 2010 do not compel exam centres to accept/register candidates with Access Arrangements. We support AAs at our own discretion and will only be able to offer services for which we have the physical, human and financial resource (and its availability) to support. This can change rapidly as demand increases over the course of an exam series, so please work with us in a timely and respectful manner, as delays could impact you directly.

Please note: We do not, under any circumstances, support home invigilation of exams.

9. Special Considerations

Over recent exam series, we have experienced an increased number of candidates and parent/carers attempting to utilise Special Consideration measures to gain an advantage. Please be aware, our exam centre will not tolerate this. The regulations are clear that Special Consideration is only to be used for serious incidents that unexpectedly occur at the time of the assessment (during the examination) and in our view will have had a material affect on the candidate. Such incidents will be identified by our examination team, reported to our Head of Centre, who will determine whether special consideration applies.

Items of particular note:

1. The submission of a special considerations application is at the discretion of our exam centre.
   
2. As a private candidate, you have the option to take your examination in any examination series, so please do not register if you feel a recent event will impact your performance in the examination. There will be some situations where candidates should not be entered for a qualification or a
   unitised examination.
   

Please do not call or approach us to ask for special considerations before or after an assessment. As a private candidate, you choose when you register for an examination, whether or not there is a circumstance in your life which may impact you when sitting an exam. If this is the case, you should not register for the examination. We can advise on a later examination series.

Special Considerations and Access Arrangements. Similarly, some candidates have also tried to acquire a special consideration for an exam for which they have already applied successfully for Access Arrangements to cater for their disadvantage. If the Access Arrangement you have been granted by the awarding body covers the disadvantage that you normally experience, then you will not be granted special consideration for the same (or related) issue.

10. Exam Fees

Entries will be processed when payment is received in full. Payment can be made by Bank transfer or card payment. Contact us for details.

When you register as a private candidate with us, you will be entered for the examinations listed on your registration form and in the name given in your proof of identity.

All deposits are non-refundable and non-transferable.

Instalments
Occasionally, we may, at our discretion, permit payment in instalments. The conditions of this option are:

• No registration with the examination boards will be made until the final payment is made and cleared.
• We will not extend payment instalments beyond 3 payments.
• Payees accept that instalments are nothing more than a means to affordably ‘reserve’ a place at our exam centre. They are not a guarantee of a place.
• If full payment is not made by the agreed deadline (final invoice), no place exists.
• If a candidate withdraws before final payment is made, no refund of payments will be made, as work already carried out by our staff will incur costs.

You should ensure that you have the means to pay for your exam fees. If your exam fees are being provided by a local authority or other sponsor, please arrange the financial details/exchange of funds yourself. It would be administratively and financially prohibitive for us to have individual payment accounts with discrete terms with every candidate’s public or private sponsor.

11. Refunds

Deposits are non refundable.

IMPORTANT: If we can still provide the intended or equivalent service you paid for, we will not make refunds and may invoice further for costs related to a cancellation or withdrawal if such additional costs are placed upon us and cannot be retrieved by another means.

Cancellations and withdrawals will require an associated fee and this will be sent via invoice and we will action the cancellation or withdrawal once funds have cleared.

We do not issue refunds for candidates who change their mind or request a ‘transfer’ to another exam centre. We will, however, issue additional payment requests for administration costs for any linked withdrawals.

Where national health guidance is issued for the cancellation of exams, we will not issue refunds, but will work to ensure service disruption is reduced to a minimum within our capabilities and in line with government guidelines.

Refunds will not be issued for no-shows, or those turning up for an exam at the wrong time. Candidates must check both the information we provide and check this against their awarding body’s website information.

12. Deferring Examinations

• Deferring is not an automatic option at our exam centre.
• Deferrals are at the sole discretion of our exam centre and our decision is final.
• If our exam centre agrees to defer, it will do so only where:
  • our exam centre and the awarding body offer the deferred examination in the sitting proposed. Candidate’s defer at their own risk. No refunds can be made if an awarding body later amends its examination offer so that the examination can not be sat at the time of the deferred sitting.
  • robust, externally verified evidence can be provided directly relating to the need for the deferral. Such evidence will be considered, but no guarantee will be made regarding the referral until a decision has been made by our exam centre.
  • the examination is available in the next immediate examination sitting. For example, deferrals may be made from Summer to Autumn, but not from Summer to the next Summer and only where the examination is offered by our exam centre and the awarding body. 
• No deferral will be facilitated under any circumstances, if less that one month’s notice is given before the original examination date.
• Deferring an exam for more than an exam sitting is not possible, as there is no guarantee that our exam centre or the exam board will be offering the deferred examination in the future exam sitting.

• We will not ‘transfer’ deferrals to another exam centre. 

• Any deferral granted will require further full payment of the exam fees (at the applicable future rate) as if it was the first sitting.
• To note: A non-critical change in a candidate’s personal circumstances will not reach the threshold of us considering a deferral request.

13. Exam Particulars

Please check all exam entry information sent to you from us. It is your responsibility to ensure the information sent from us is in line with the information issued for your chosen qualification from your chosen exam board. If it isn’t, let is know as soon as possible.

Clashes will be accommodated according to JCQ requirements on a case by case basis. This may include a full day at our exam centre under direct supervision of our invigilators. Clashes with third party exams or events not associated with our exam centre cannot be accommodated and candidates are reminded to coordinate this themselves. We do not need to know of your plans outside the examinations you’re sitting with us; we will simply expect you on your exam day and will not engage in communications with others to facilitate your external arrangements.

No refunds can be made where a candidate is unable to resolve a ‘personal’ clash in these circumstances and does not attend their exam at our centre. However, please contact us if there is a real emergency.

Late attendees to exams may be allowed into our exam centre or may be turned away, depending on the circumstances and times and no refund will be available for those who fail to sit some or all of their exam(s).

Candidates and families/representatives must note that our exam centre is not a public building and there is no unauthorised right of access. All access is by scheduled authorised invitation only.

14. Candidate Handbook

Information in relation to actually sitting your exam and our post-exam and results day services can be found in the Candidate Handbook which will be issued to candidates upon successful registration and payment of deposit fees.

15. A reminder

Good manners, tolerance and respect are offered by us and expected from you.

To resolve issues, we will only deal with candidates themselves or those who have Power of Attorney (proof required) to support the candidate. We are happy to work with parents/carers, translators or sign language support personnel, but not in isolation of the wishes of the candidate or their PoA.

No exam centre is obliged to accept private candidates. We do accept private candidates, at our discretion, to provide amazing, life-changing opportunities for people. We reserve the right to lawfully refuse, without reason, access to our services to those who do not value and respect our staff or services, which includes the burden of unnecessary additional administration.

Neither awarding bodies or the regulator will intervene to force an exam centre to accept a private candidate and our decision is always final and non-negotiable. We may also choose to discontinue offering our services, if given cause to, at any stage of the relationship with candidates or their representatives.