Students will instead have to open a web page to get their results

Exam board Edexcel will pilot the scheme with a small number of A-level students and GCSE maths candidates.

All will be able to get results online - the GCSE students will also be able to view their marked paper, with scores for each question.

Edexcel's managing director, Jerry Jarvis, said the scheme had been made possible by electronic marking systems.

Those taking part will be given a unique username and password, similar to online banking systems. This will allow them to log on to a secure website and access their results on the morning of release.

Hundreds of A-level candidates will be able to use the service when A-level results are released on August 17.

A week later about 200 GCSE maths students at schools in the West Midlands and Wiltshire will also take part in the "Results Plus" scheme.

Model answers

This follows Edexcel's Results Analysis Service (RAS), which teachers have used since the advent of onscreen marking to access results online.

RAS allows results to be downloaded onto a spreadsheet and provides links to the examination papers, marking schemes and examiners' reports.

Here they will be able to see their marked paper, showing scores for each question and model answers to identify where they went wrong.