ISEB sets the Common Entrance papers, but the receiving senior school — not ISEB — marks them. ISEB's regulations are explicit that scripts should not be sent to the ISEB office for marking; instead, the prep school sends completed scripts securely to the senior school the candidate applied to, which marks them against its own standard.
A genuinely different model from a national exam
This is worth stating plainly, because it's easy to assume CE13 works like a GCSE: sat under exam conditions, sent away, and centrally marked to a single national scheme with a published grade boundary. It doesn't. GCSEs are set and marked by an exam board to the same standard for every candidate nationally. Common Entrance is set centrally by ISEB, but marking is devolved to whichever senior school the candidate is applying to — so the exact same script, in principle, could be marked slightly differently depending on which school's marking criteria and academic standard is applied.
| Feature | GCSE | Common Entrance (CE13) |
|---|---|---|
| Sets the papers | Exam board (AQA, Edexcel, etc.) | ISEB |
| Marks the papers | Exam board, to a fixed national scheme | The receiving senior school, to its own standard |
| Pass mark | Published grade boundaries, same nationally | Set independently by each senior school |
How the script actually gets marked
Once a pupil sits their CE13 papers at their own prep school, the head of the exam centre (usually the prep school) is responsible for the safekeeping of the completed scripts and for sending them on to the correct senior school by secure, guaranteed next-day delivery — sometimes scanned and emailed first, with hard copies following. The senior school's own staff then mark the scripts, applying whatever criteria and threshold that particular school has decided reflects a suitable standard for entry.
For a family, this practical detail matters mainly because it explains why timing can feel opaque from the outside. There is no central results-day announcement in the way there is for GCSEs — results come back from each senior school on its own timetable, once its own staff have finished marking scripts against its own standard, so two families with children applying to different schools may hear back at slightly different points even though both sat CE13 in the same week.
Why the "pass mark" is really "whatever the destination school decides is enough"
Because marking sits with the destination school rather than a central body, there is no single number that counts as "passing" Common Entrance. What counts as sufficient can vary from school to school, and even from subject to subject within the same school's requirements — a school might set a higher bar in Mathematics than in an optional language, for instance, depending on what it considers most important for a pupil to have secured.
This also interacts directly with how a pupil arrived at CE13 in the first place. As covered in how schools use ISEB Pre-Test scores for conditional offers, most pupils sitting CE13 already hold a conditional offer made years earlier on the strength of their ISEB Common Pre-Test score. For these pupils, CE13 marking functions less like a fresh pass/fail hurdle and more like a confirmation check against the standard implied by that earlier offer — a firmly-held conditional offer, backed by consistently strong school reports, generally needs CE13 to confirm rather than to re-decide the outcome. A pupil without an existing conditional offer, applying more directly on the strength of their CE13 result alone, may find the same school applying a comparatively more exacting read of the same marks.
FAQ
Does ISEB mark any part of Common Entrance?
No. ISEB writes and administers the papers, but marking is carried out entirely by the senior school the candidate has applied to. ISEB's regulations specifically instruct that scripts are not sent to ISEB for marking.
Is there a single pass mark for Common Entrance, like 50%?
No — there is no single, universal pass mark. Each senior school sets its own required standard, which can differ by school and even by subject within the same school. Ask your child's target senior school directly what standard they expect, ideally when a conditional offer is first discussed.
Could the same script get a different result at a different school?
In principle, yes, because each school marks to its own criteria and threshold rather than a shared national scheme. This is exactly why a pupil's result is generally read in the context of the specific school they applied to, rather than as a portable, universal score.
If my child already has a conditional offer, does the marking still matter?
Yes, but its role shifts. For a pupil with a well-established conditional offer, CE13 marking mainly serves to confirm that their performance and school reports remain consistent with what was expected, rather than acting as a fresh competitive hurdle — see how schools use ISEB Pre-Test scores for conditional offers for the full picture.
Whatever standard your child's senior school applies, steady subject support in the run-up to Common Entrance can help — explore aitutors.me to find out more.