Private Visits

These terms and conditions set out how we expect Visit Organisers to organise and host Private Visits.

• Terms and conditions for Visit Organisers (PDF)
• Addendum to terms and conditions for Visit Organisers (PDF)

As a result of COVID-19, we have new venue guidance and procedures in place. The guidance explains what you need to do to make sure your venue is suitable and safe, and that effective social distancing can take place. It is very important that you read and understand this guidance before you consider booking a Private Visit.

• COVID-19: Private Visit venue guidance (PDF)

Anyone organising a Private Visit accepts responsibility for providing facilities according to our instructions and for the appropriate conduct of the exam (see regulation 13f). We advise Visit Organisers to carry out a risk assessment (see regulation 13b).

• Risk assessment checklist (PDF)
• Risk assessment form (PDF)

We must approve your Private Visit venue before exams take place to make sure it meets our standards.

• The approval process can take up to eight working days.
• You only need to request approval for your venue once. If we give approval, this will apply for all future visits at that venue.
• Once we’ve approved your venue we will give it a code.
• As the Visit Organiser you should share your code with any Permitted Applicants. This allows them to book candidates at your visit. Once the Permitted Applicant has used the venue code, they will remain a Permitted Applicant at the Private Visit for any future bookings. We will not share venue codes with anyone other than the Visit Organiser.

To request approval for your venue:

• Log in or register and create an account
• On the dashboard click ‘Private Visit’.
• Under ‘My Venues’ click ‘Request approval for a new venue’.
• Complete and submit the form in the pop up window. Please read our Terms and conditions for Visit Organisers (PDF) before you do this.
• We will then send you an email within three working days. This will include a link to our Venue approval application form (PDF) which you should complete and return to us by email with the required documents and photographs.
• We will respond within five working days of receiving the form to confirm our approval of your venue or to ask for further information.
• Once approved, your venue will appear under ‘My Venues’ in your account.

As the Visit Organiser you can change your instrumental and singing Private Visit date(s) or add more days, as long as you do this before we’ve confirmed the visit. This happens 28 days before the visit start date. Until this point the visit will appear as ‘ready for booking’ or ‘not approved’ in your account.

To change a date:

• Click ‘Private Visit’ and select your visit.
• Click ‘Amend dates' and select the new date(s) from the calendar and a start time.
• Click ‘Confirm dates’.

To add more days:

• Click ‘Private Visit’ and select your visit.
• Click ‘Amend dates'.
• Re-select the start date then select your new ‘venue available until’ date from the calendar.
• Click ‘Confirm dates’.

You can only select dates that allow enough examining time for the candidates already booked at the visit. Dates must not overlap with another existing visit at the same venue.

If you request a change of date within 28 days of the visit, the following additional fees will apply:

• Full-day date change: £150
• Half-day date change: £100

Once a Private Visit is confirmed, the Visit Organiser can rearrange their exam timetable.

• You can make timetable changes up to 48 hours before the visit start date.
• When planning your timetable you should follow our standard exam day. Our online timetabling tool will not accept timings that are significantly different and you cannot change breaks or lunch.

Standard exam day

• The day can start at 9.00am or 9.30am.
• Each day can include a maximum of 6 hours and 30 minutes of exams.
• Any exams exceeding this will be scheduled the following day.

We do not normally allow any other timetable arrangements. However, if you would like to request an alternative timetable you can email us at [email protected] before the visit has been confirmed (28 days before the start date). We cannot consider requests after this deadline.

Once timetable changes have been made, the Visit Organiser has the option to lock the timetable. This stops exam times changing for everyone if an exam is cancelled or moved to a different slot.

• You can lock the timetable at any point from when the visit is confirmed up to 48 hours before the start date.
• It’s not possible to unlock the timetable once it has been locked. However, you can still move candidates into space at the end of the day or into available slots created by cancelling or moving exams. You can also remove empty slots if you wish to. This will shift all the following candidates up and you will receive a warning message if you are about to do this.

To lock your timetable:

• Click ‘Private Visit’ and select your visit.
• Click ‘Arrange timetable’ and ‘Lock timetable’.

The Visit Organiser is responsible for contacting candidates and any Permitted Applicants to let them know the finalised exam times. If you lock your timetable, this will send an automated email to any candidates with an account and to Permitted Applicants to let them know that the timetable has been finalised and that they can view their confirmed times.

Visit Organisers and Permitted Applicants can upload candidate and exam details in bulk from a pre-populated file.

To upload a candidate list:

• Go to the ‘Add candidates’ section of your booking.
• Click ‘download import template’.
• Add your candidate/exam details to the template.
• Click ‘Import candidates from file’ and select the template.
• Click ‘open’ and the candidate/exam details will appear in your Private Visit booking.
• You can edit any candidate details on-screen before confirming.

At any time, Visit Organisers can download a list of the candidates booked at their Private Visit.

• Go to your booking.
• Click ‘List of all candidates’.
• Click ‘Export timetable (CSV)’.

If a candidate’s name contains a special character this will appear as a question mark (?) in the downloaded file, and if a name contains a comma this will move part of the name into the next column. You can correct these directly in the file. The names on marks forms and certificates will appear correctly, with any commas or special characters as they were entered in the original exam booking.

We are unable to transfer exam bookings between Private Visits and Public Venues. Instead, you will need to log in to your account, cancel the original booking and then make a new booking at your preferred venue. Please see our refund policy for more information.