The Department for Education manages an online portal of exam achievements called the Learning Records Service (LRS). For the achievements to be recorded, each student requires a unique learner number, known as a ULN. This is a randomly generated ten-digit number unique to each student. When a student is entered for an exam, the ULN is included among the details. Awarding bodies then use this number to upload results to the students’ personal learning record on the LRS.

All state-funded schools and colleges in England, Northern Ireland and Wales must have a valid ULN for every student. Independent/private schools are not required to use ULNs, though many choose to.

There are two ways to get a ULN for a student: through the LRS, or through your MIS provider. There’s more information on the Education and Skills Funding website.

To make sure qualification results can be uploaded to a personal learning record, awarding bodies must ‘validate’ the number. This is done by comparing a set of five details for the student from the entry against the same information held by the Learning Records Service. If the records match, the ULN is considered valid.

The checks include five data fields, which must match between the awarding body’s records and the learner details held by the LRS:

• ULN
• Given name
• Family name
• Date of birth
• Gender

No other details are included in the check.

Every awarding body is obliged to notify schools of any ULNs that have failed to validate. When schools and colleges make entries with OCR, we will carry out a ULN check as part of the entry validation. If any ULNs fail to validate, we will email the NCN contact with the details.

No. Awarding bodies cannot update the LRS. Any amends you make to one system must be duplicated on the other. Failure to do so will result in a previously valid ULN becoming invalid.

Any discrepancy in the five fields mentioned above will cause a ULN not to validate.

The most common discrepancies between student details on the LRS and our own database include:

• A candidate's legal name is submitted to OCR but the known-as name is used on the LRS or vice versa. We recommend you enter candidates under names that can be verified against suitable identification.
• Incorrect spelling of the candidate’s name.
• Middle given names being listed as first names and vice versa – or where a family name has been changed by deed poll and isn’t recorded on both systems.
• Days and months in dates of birth being transposed.
• Gender listed incorrectly.