This blog post was updated on 23rd October 2019

At NEC we can guarantee our students an exam place at one of our partnership exam centres. In our experience finding an exam centre can take students a lot of time and be quite a difficult process. Entering privately/independently also means NEC aren’t always able to help you with any issues that may arise. With NEC, you just need to fill out a form and we’ll do the rest, leaving you to get on with the important business of learning and preparing for your exams.

We’ve spent years building up strong relationships with our partnership exam centres which means we can react quickly when any problems arise and we know that you’ll receive a professional service from them on exam day. You’ve got enough to think about so we’ll worry about that part for you!

If you’re planning to sit your exams in the summer next year (2020) you’ll need to make your exam booking by January. Remember, if you have any non-exam assessment to do, you’ll have deadlines for this too. We’ll keep you up-to-date and make sure you get reminders when final dates are approaching. We always recommend making your booking sooner rather than later.

As an exam centre ourselves, we understand how the process of exam booking works. You can be confident that you’ll get the right papers and all the information you’ll need to make exam day run smoothly.

In fact, the only thing we can’t do for you, is sit the exam!

If you have special access requirements, such as extra time or use of a laptop, we’ll work with you and the exam centre to see what is possible. You’ll need documents that support evidence of need. Documents in support of the candidate’s claim must be in the form of a full assessment report and written evidence from an educational establishment, listing the special access arrangements required and your normal way of working.

We’ve got a number of partnership exam centres across the UK. You can view them on our exams page, which also includes a handy map.

If you’re outside of the UK and need to come here to the UK, choosing an NEC partnership centre is a sensible choice. Not only will we take the administration off your hands, we know the areas that our centres are located and can advise you on getting there and finding somewhere to stay.

If you want to take advantage of NEC’s seamless exam booking service, you can find full details and an application for in the ‘About Assessment’ section of your course on learn@nec. You can also get in touch if you have any questions and we’ll be happy to help.

NEC have also produced an essential exams handbook, which provides information for all students preparing to take exams as a private candidate. View below or download from our Exams and Assessment page.