The one thing you can be sure of as an Exams Officer is that there is always plenty to do and always plenty to be planning for! In this blog, we’ll be exploring those competing demands and what you can do to mitigate workload issues throughout the year.

At any one time you could be thinking about entries, registrations, access arrangements, certificates, results, data entry, special consideration applications, and a whole raft of other things if you have a combined role within your centre. In a job governed by deadlines there will always be one looming. Luckily (most of the time) exam boards don’t spring a deadline on you, so it’s worth scheduling these deadlines in a way that suits you so that you have a visual record of them and have some dates to aim for – and it’s always good to have these available to others in case contingency planning comes in to play. I always build in some wriggle-room to deadlines I pass on to teaching staff – and make sure they know this is to allow time for the task to be completed. Nothing worse than someone arriving at the Exams Office at 3.30pm on entry deadline day and expecting you to perform a miracle because they’ve had a quick google of when the board’s deadline actually is.

The other benefit of working in exams is that is a cyclical job and after a couple of years it becomes second nature to be thinking about certain tasks in a pattern and at given points within the year. I’ll always associate A-level basedata downloads with the week before Christmas break, for example – and planning seating for summer GCSEs when there are Easter eggs around.

I like to think of tasks in terms of short-term, medium-term, and long-term. What needs to be done now, what can wait a week or so and what is on the horizon. When things are grim and relentless and it’s all backs against the wall, sometimes a little respite in terms of thinking about something a little way off is just the thing to help you re-focus. It’s still work but the net gain from making a little progress on something which is a way off might just be the break you need – going to look at a new room you’re planning to use for exams in the summer, drafting a summer timetable or even having an hour tidying your secure room are all worthwhile tasks.

Of course, one of the biggest drains on your time will be the need to run exams whilst being constantly on-call should anything unexpected happen – with one eye on what needs to be done in the medium term and long-term. So much of what an EO does is unpredictable – we’re reliant on candidates doing what we expect, invigilators doing what we ask and teaching staff doing what they should do – and we are often the people who must sort things out when any of the above don’t do as they should.

I must admit that it took me a while to learn to settle down to other things whilst exams were physically taking place. Once I understood that some exams will be a doddle and others will take up more of my time, I learnt to save pieces of work which were much smaller, or repetitive, because being interrupted whilst doing these was preferable than being interrupted when undertaking a much bigger task. Being able to plan your workload around exams taking place is a definite bonus – I saw lots of social media posts during last summer from EOs who were really appreciating the chance to catch up on things on the Contingency Days.

Also, think about whether it makes more sense to you to save up multiple tasks to get them done in one go, rather than complete them as and when. Think about things like special consideration applications. Does it make sense to do them straight after the exam has happened, or would it be better doing them all at a given point in time – at the end of the series, or every Thursday afternoon, for example? Running amendment submissions – do you do them every time you make an amendment, or does it make more sense to send them once a week? To my mind, much better to have some time to focus on doing multiples of a task so that you can get into a routine with it and a bit less risky in terms of missing something where you are dealing with them piecemeal.

For new EOs it comes with experience, but for those of us who have been in role a while, it’s a definite benefit to be able to look at a piece of work and say to yourself ‘that can wait until …’. When I was a new EO I had no clue what was urgent and what wasn’t and no line manager with exams knowledge to teach me. With the benefit of time-served and experience, it has become easier and no doubt I leave some tasks for days longer than I would have when I was new. For those of you who are new to the role, or within your first year, please hang on to this. Knowing what you need to do, when you need to do it and roughly how long it will take does eventually come to you!

The online CPD Induction programme for exam officers can help you know what you need to do and when.

I wrote in my last blog about how I rely on emails more than anyone who teaches time management would ever suggest that you should! For me, these emails are effectively my to-do-list. Having the ability to flag items for action on a certain date, or categorise and move things into sub-folders really helps me to be able to focus on what needs to be done now without having those nagging feelings that you need to remember to do something else at some point in the future. I supplement that with a notebook in which I can jot down notes relating to tasks and highlight the tasks when they have been completed.

Whatever way you choose to do it – have a physical to-do-list, notebooks, add tasks to that deadline schedule I recommended above – you do you. There’s one piece of advice I was given by a manager years ago which I would definitely NOT recommend. He told me that if he had been asked for something, and the person requesting it hadn’t chased it within three weeks, he just didn’t do it! I don’t get the impression that there is much in the exams world that someone would ask you to do just for the heck of it – mainly because most things cost some money – so best to get them planned into that to-do-list!

Whether you are on your own, have an assistant or a team of staff, there are likely going to be times when there’s just too much work for you to do. I’ve seen social media posts galore from EOs who are working far more hours than they should without getting paid or getting hours back. It’s great to see posts from other EOs who work for more understanding centres who offer overtime pay, or TOIL arrangements – or the Holy Grail of annualised hours.

If you don’t already have it, getting an understanding from your line manager of what you can expect for additional hours worked will probably make you feel better about having to work those additional hours. I appreciate that it’s a struggle for EOs in some centres but urge anyone who is likely to give hours of their time for free to provide a professional, diligent exams service to get an agreement in place before the main exam season starts. As qualifications get more complicated, and access arrangements are greater in number, it’s safe to assume that you’ll be working as hard, if not harder than you did last summer – regardless of the type of centre you work in.

Also, think about whether there are any staff groups in your centre who you can utilise to assist. Is there something that you do that you could get someone else to do – think about things like setting up exam rooms, making sure posters are up, packing exam scripts? They are all things that can be done with the minimum of training and will take some of the pressure off you. On big exam days, I will schedule some invigilators to start earlier than others and use them to go round the exam rooms and make sure they are set-up according to room plans, posters are up, etc. I’ll also ask a couple to stay behind after the exam and sort and package the scripts ready for dispatch. Yes, it costs money, but it’s not an effective use of my time to be doing these things, so it’s money well spent.

If you want to discuss best practice, time management with other exam staff and get valuable support without having to travel take a look at the Exam Officers Lunch and Learn Club.