With all the recent media coverage about education focusing on schools and staff and student absences at the start of spring term it could appear that January vocational and technical qualification assessments, mainly taken in colleges, have been overlooked. They haven’t; colleges have been preparing students for assessments in line with Government guidance. January assessment is top of the list of meetings with DfE, Ofqual and awarding organisations.
Over the next couple of months hundreds and in some cases thousands of students in colleges across the country will be sitting exams which count towards their final grades. These qualifications are offered by seven awarding organisations: Pearson, OCR, WJEC, NCFE, AQA, VTCT and The London Institute of Banking and Finance. We also need to remember that apprentices undertake assessment all year round and are doing so now.
Key for colleges is ensuring fairness between those students who are able to take assessment and those who aren’t
January assessment won’t be without its challenges due to the surge in Omicron infections up and down the country affecting both staff and students perhaps more than at any other time during the pandemic. This impact will differ between and even within regions. However, after two years of disruption, colleges are keen to go ahead with exams to enable students to show what they can do having spent many hours preparing and revising. Key for colleges is ensuring fairness between those students who are able to take assessment and those who aren’t. College staff are committed to ensuring all students get the opportunity to complete their qualifications as smoothly as possible in order to support them into further study or employment.
Where students are absent the recommendation from DfE and Ofqual is to defer students where possible to the summer series and apply for special considerations where that is not possible. Ofqual has a handy rolling update on assessment guidance with links to the websites of all seven awarding organisations. If you have a question, take a look at the guidance and contact the relevant awarding organisation where necessary.
It is still early days in this assessment window. The experience of students and colleges during the assessment series is being closely monitored on a daily basis by awarding organisations, DfE and Ofqual. Here at AoC we are also in contact with the Department, Ofqual and individual awarding organisations feeding in queries from colleges. If as a college you have questions, let us know and we can feed them in and help to get answers.