School says we have to pay to receive GCSE certificates - surely this isn't allowed?

[everythingcrossed]

My child attends a state secondary school in London - he has just finished his GCSEs and is staying on for sixth form there. We have just had a letter saying that in order to receive the GCSE certificate with his results - he will receive the actual results in August but this is the official certificate once everyone has had their grades appealed etc - he will have to pay £10. I know it's not a lot of money but I think it's a huge cheek - he will be at the school, all he has to do is walk to the office, at an arranged time if they choose, and collect it. I feel the school is often high-handed and grabby, but I'm really furious about this, they seem to be holding his certificate to ransom

Never heard this before.

Same here. I have all my certificates. I took my first exams in 1983.

Here is the letter (seems to be factually incorrect as @TeenDivided's link to guidance shows that schools are required to hold the certificates for a year). There is no alternative to having them posted. The school has a large 6th form so, in total, about 700 students will receive certificates, so £7k in fees...

Our policy regarding exam certificates has changed; we will no longer hold collection days. Instead, students are required to pay a fee of £10 to cover the cost of certificates being posted by secure, recorded mail. This is the most efficient and reliable way of ensuring that they are received.

^They will be posted sometime during November or early December 2022 once they have all been received from the exam boards, checked and collated.
We can only post certificates to a UK postal address provided we receive payment of £10 by 30th October 2022.^

Certificates are valuable documents that will be required by universities or employers. SCHOOL'S NAME is not required to store them and it is an expensive and time-consuming process to buy replacements from the exam boards.

Is this not the school is on holiday so they are offering to post them?

It is an expensive process to buy replacements. One that the school would have to bear if the certificates don't get there. And, from experience, they don't.

This does sound more like a member of SLT deciding not to hold collection days because kids don't come or if they do, don't bring ID, send friends, Mums, Aunties and friend's Mums to pick them up. All of which has to be checked and signed for.

I don't think I got any certificate, just a little printed slip. Never had to provide any evidence, not for university interview or anything else. Although once you have A levels and a degree I don't suppose anybody would care about GCSEs. Took mine in 85.

Sounds like a money making ploy by the school to me. At my children's school you can collect in person between certain dates which is what most people do (for GCSE certificates anyway), leave a stamped addressed envelope, or pay the school to send special delivery if you don't want to trust the "normal" post. Yes, I'm sure it is all a bit of a pain for the admin staff, but it's part of their job surely?
The OP's children's school is trying to dress it up as a security issue by the sounds of things but I think that is ridiculous. I'm sure most 6th formers can be trusted to bring an envelope home, and if they can't, then that's their issue, not the school's. Assuming there isn't some bizarre back story like armed gangs roaming the streets waiting to mug youngsters for their GCSE certificates, once is in their hands, the certificate is their responsibility. If the young people and their parents are happy to collect what is after all, their property, I don't think the school should stop them. And £10 is a signamount of money for some famikies to find, especially at present.
I would complain OP.

I sign up apprentices and they need their original GCSE certificates, the results slip is not accepted by the apprenticeship awarding body. I have so many students who never get their certificate from school and it causes them massive issues later on. It's costly to order replacements. Seems lots of schools charge so lots of students don't bother to ever get them. At my FE college we send them all out for every qualification our students achieve, over 1000 certificates a year but legally these are not our property so we budget for the expense.

It would be a lot less work for school to set up a collection evening - come and collect between 4 & 7 and only then post on request (charging for special delivery if needed). They'd have less than half left I'd have thought.

They ARE needed and in 20 years of teaching in a state school, I have never heard of a child being charged.

Me either, in a similar time frame.

I will be in touch with them once the exam board replies to me regarding whom the certificates belong to

Regardless of what the exam board says on this technical point: this is a state school with a statutory duty to provide free education. No court would consider the certificates for standardised, national, terminal qualifications to be an optional extra.

Ask nicely but if they say know I suspect tipping off a newspaper would respolve the problem.

I had to show mine for my Access course and my undergrad. This was in 2017 (did my GCSEs in 2001!!!) so not an age ago.

So far, ds has had to show the originals to his college prior to them filling in their part of the UCAS form (results slip was enough to enrol). He has been instructed to take them to his university when he enrols. Some employers ask for them, especially when there is a requirement to prove maths/English. You need them to enrol on a PGCE.

They won't be issued until around October/November time.

We used to be able to collect or post, but they changed to postage only I believe because of a spate of lost certificates where the pupil had collected them and they'd never made home for whatever reason, and also hassle the staff got from people wanting to "collect friend's", which wasn't allowed.

But they only charge £2 and, as with anything like that, they say PP don't need to pay.

Not sure if you've noticed but the world has moved on in the nearly 40 years since 1985 and young people need to preset original certificates now for jobs and courses

A compulso rycharge for postage is just not on, I suspect the schoil will be rowing back on that change

Those who say you don’t need them - I had to show them to get on my PGCE course; my last job (public sector) I had to show degree cert and GCSEs (well, O Levels actually - I am old).

Op this is appalling and deffo not OK, please challenge it. Also seems like an unnecessary amount of work for staff. Ds2 did A levels last year and picked up his certs from school the other week; no drama.

At the exams office of a school I worked in we had two methods. We held sessions where the student collected their certificates from the office and signed for them. Alternatively they were sent out in signed for post.

There were always a small number of parents who claimed they hadn't been given out but then were shown that their child had indeed signed for them!!

The guidance regarding they shouldn't be held back for non payment of fees relates to non payment of school fees. I would just accept it is better to pay the £10 fee for signed for post than to trust it to first class post.

Same here. Little printed slip, long gone

Is this 10 pounds per exam or just for the whole lot of certificates per child?

Realistic cost of sending them recorded mail v amount of these fees = money for the school. I know school budgets are stretched but this is disgusting.

To echo others, you absolutely do need these and they can't withhold them. Communicate with the school to explain you are not paying it, and why. They can't dispute it, and there's no reason they should be posting them to students still in the school - complete waste of time and money. It sounds like the exams officer is difficult.

I needed to provide copies of my certificates from the 90s to the Canadian Government in order to prove I could speak English and not have to take the English test as part of applying for Canadian citizenship. Luckily, I had kept them.

I imagine is to they can prove receipt easily but they’re lazy and wrong to not offer collection

we send out certs and allow collection

if collected the students sign a pick up form

if posted proof of recorded delivery is sufficient. Both methods as proof have. to be available for awarding bodies

You absolutely need the certs

I’ve been asked to show original certs for every job I’ve had

Also, to PP saying it's a hassle for them to hold a collection day - absolutely it is but it's not acceptable to not offer this and charge people - you can't randomly charge parents in state schools for things which are a mandatory part of the curriculum/all students need. It's immoral. At my place it would be collection day (literally just someone in office for them to get them from), then if they are still in the school list sent round bugging them to collect from the exams officer then post them as a last resort to people no longer on roll. It's a basic part of someone's job, not an added extra. As PP suggested, try the head of year, then the head teacher then the LEA or governing body. And absolutely get your child to ask for them and don't pay - they cannot withhold it.

In fairness to the school, it's likely to be Special Delivery by 1pm with insurance for the consequential loss when they don't turn up and they have to buy replacements - £6.85 + £2.28 = £9.13 plus a part of the cost of the cardboard backed envelopes.

But they're always in an awkward position when kids will insist that they never received their certificates when there's a clear signature to show that they were collected by the kid nine months ago (and presumably lost), parents will say that their kid never collected them (but there's the kid's signature or formal permission for somebody else on production of ID to collect them) and others will claim that they never came through the door when posted.

There will always be somebody saying they weren't received because of something the school did wrong, whatever way they do it - it's just that this school has decided it's less hassle to charge everybody because then there's independent proof of somebody signing for them at the house (and they won't have to pay for the replacements if the delivery fucks up because it's insured).

The mistake is the member of SLT that thinks this is actually going to stop people claiming they never received their certificates when it won't.