Vocational Qualifications: Information and updates

• For students completing their qualification this summer, teachers will make a holistic judgement based on evidence of each student’s performance in the subject.

• Students will only be assessed on the content which has been taught. Teachers should make sure that they have taught as much content as they need to make a judgement about a grade.

• Schools and colleges will use a broad range of evidence for each student, for each subject studied, to determine their individual grades before submitting them to us.

• Teachers can use evidence of a student’s performance from throughout the course to inform their judgement.

• Teachers should determine the grades as late in the academic year as possible, and are not confined to a defined window; this will enable teaching to continue for as long as possible. The deadline for submitting grades is 18 June 2021. Please note, the deadline for completing work is likely to be earlier, as this will allow for schools/colleges to complete their internal quality assurance processes.

• In response to the on-going public health restrictions, and student absences due to self-isolation, we have agreed that students should be allowed to complete controlled assessment work from home, where it is safe and practicable to do so. We have produced guidance for centres to support these arrangements.

• Heads of centres will need to confirm that students have been taught sufficient content to allow progression to the next stage of their education in the subjects to be studied. Without this declaration it won’t be possible to award a grade. They’ll also need to declare that the requirements for internal quality assurance have been met.

• Students should continue to work on their controlled assessments. Controlled assessments will be marked by teachers and will contribute to the overall grade, whether or not it’s been completed. We will not moderate this and schools/colleges are not required to submit marks to us.

• Private candidates are permitted to work with a school or college to receive a grade this year alongside their own students. We’ll give you clear guidance on the evidence you can use to assess a private candidate.

Detailed Guidance on the determination of grades for vocational and other general qualifications for Summer 2021: Information for centres in England and Northern Ireland, can be found on our secure website.

We are currently preparing additional materials to support teachers to determine centre grades for our Entry Level Certificates, Level 1/2 Vocational Awards and Level 3 Applied Certificates and Diplomas. This includes training on assessing internal and external units, exemplar materials and a range of past papers and mark schemes.

These materials will be made available in the dedicated Vocational Qualifications Summer 2021 area of our secure website beginning week commencing 19 April 2021.

We’ve worked with other JCQ awarding organisations to make sure that requirements for internal quality assurance and arrangements for external quality assurance are consistent where possible. This includes aligning some of our processes to those being put in place for AS/A Levels and GCSEs.

Schools' or colleges' internal quality assurance arrangements will need to include consideration of their profile of results in previous years as a guide to help check that judgements aren’t unduly harsh or lenient.

It’s really important that schools and colleges document the process they follow to ensure the judgements being made are fair, consistent, evidence-based, and free from bias and discrimination. As well as good practice, this documentation will also be required as part of the external quality assurance we will need to undertake this year.

Results for our vocational and other general qualifications will align with the earlier dates for the publication of GCE AS, A-level and GCSE results.

Applied Certificate and Applied Diploma, GCE AS and A-level qualifications

• Results will be released to centres on Monday 9 August 2021.
• Students will receive their results on Tuesday 10 August 2021.

Entry Level Certificates, Vocational Awards, Latin, Certificates, Additional Mathematics and GCSE qualifications

• Results will be released to centres on Wednesday 11 August 2021.
• Students will receive their results on Thursday 12 August 2021.

Students will be able to appeal their grade via the following process:

• A student who considers that an error has been made with their grade will first ask their school/college to check whether an administrative or procedural error has been made.
  
  
• Where a school/college does identify an error in the grade submitted to us, they can submit a revised grade and a rationale for us to consider. If we are satisfied with the rationale, we will issue a revised grade.
  
  
• Where a school/college does not believe an error has been made, a student can ask their school/college to appeal to us on their behalf. The school/college will submit the student’s appeal to us and provide the evidence on which the judgement has been made; we will consider whether the grade reflected an appropriate exercise of academic judgement. If we judge that it did not, we will determine the grade that the evidence would support. We will also review if the school/college has followed its own process.

Further information on the appeals process will be made available early in the Summer term.