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The visits have a particular focus on how well learners are being educated remotely. While a report is produced and published, these inspections are not graded.

The government has confirmed its plans for replacing GCSE and A-level exams this summer, with teacher assessments due to be used to give students their grades.

However, the full response to last month’s consultation is not expected to be published until later today. Education secretary Gavin Williamson is also due to brief MPs this afternoon.

Here’s what we know so far…

 

1. Teacher assessment grades, with optional ‘questions’ from exam boards

The government has confirmed it is to press ahead with its plan to use teacher assessment to issue grades this year, and has stressed that unlike last year, there will be “no algorithm”.

Ministers have also promised that pupils will only be assessed on “what they have been taught”, in recognition of the impact the Covid-19 pandemic has had on learning.

Exam boards will provide detailed guidance on how to make grade judgments by the end of the spring term, and will also publish “optional” assessment materials by Easter.

The government said teachers could use a “range of evidence”, including mock exam results, coursework, or other work completed as part of a pupil’s course, “such as essays or in-class” tests to arrive at their judgments.

Teachers will then have up until June 18 to submit their students’ grades, to allow “as much teaching time as possible” before assessments are made.

 

2. ‘Flexible’ assessment approach

Teachers will have flexibility on whether and how they use optional questions set by exam boards, some of which will be based on past papers and others that will be previously unseen.

Questions will be released for all subjects, likely by topic area, and they do not have to be sat in exam conditions.

The government will also recommend that if assessments are used, whole classes sit the same ones so teachers can compare between individuals.

In the results to the consultation, only 26 per cent of students agreed that exam board papers should be provided. That is compared to 51 per cent of parents and carers, 69 per cent of teachers and 72 per cent of senior leaders.

 

3. Results in August, not July

The government’s consultation, held last month, suggested results would “most likely” be issued in early July after the quality assurance process.

However, this has been pushed back by a month, with A-levels results due on August 10 and GCSEs on August 12. Quality assurance will still take place before the end of term.

The DfE said this approach offers “additional time for appeals to be completed”.

 

4. Another autumn exam series

For those students who want a further chance to improve on their teacher assessment grades, the government is expected to announce that a full autumn exam series will be held for the second year in a row.

Last year, almost 60 per cent of students who took an autumn exam in GCSE subjects other than English and maths improved on their grades issued in the summer. The top results at A-level dropped compared to the summer’s centre assessed grades.

 

5. Quality assurance could trigger exam board ‘visits’

The grading process will be subject to three stages of external quality assurance.

First, schools and colleges will have to send exam boards their internal quality assurance processes, which will be checked.

The boards will then conduct sample, random checks of evidence over June and July across a range of different schools and colleges.

Risk-based checks, based on criteria such as changes to entry patterns or new schools, will also then take place.

For example, if results are lower or higher than expected, it could trigger a visit from the exam board, though this could take place virtually.

 

6. Appeals will go to schools and colleges first

Despite concerns from unions, the government has confirmed its plan set out in the consultation which will allow students who believe their teacher had made an error in their grades to appeal to their school in the first instance.

However, there has been a change to the grounds for escalating an appeal to exam boards.

The consultation proposed that appeals could be submitted to exam boards on the basis that a school had not acted “in line with the exam board’s procedural requirements”.

But the government said this “did not sufficiently take into account the workload it would place on teachers, as well as the importance for students of having their appeal heard by a third party”.

Under the revised plan, schools will only have to check for errors and whether their own processes were followed in the first instance.

Then, if pupils want to take it further, exam boards will review both the school’s processes and the evidence used to determine a students’ grade to confirm whether the grade was a “reasonable exercise of academic judgement”.

Where the student disagrees with the final result issued by the exam board after the appeal, and believes the process has not been followed correctly, an application can be made to Ofqual’s Exams Procedures Review Service.

There’s no threshold for students to apply, but the grade can go up or down as in normal appeals.

DfE also expects that appeals from students with a university place will be prioritised by exam boards, which they said is similar to arrangements in previous years.

 

 

7. DfE looking at appeals funding

The DfE has said students will not have to pay for appeals, and at this stage they do not believe schools and colleges will have to pay either.

But the department is working through the exact details on how the process will be funded.

The consultation said exam boards would decide whether to charge a separate fee for appeals made to them.

 

8. Students won’t know grades before submission

As set out in the consultation, teachers will not be able to tell students’ their final grade before results days.

Exam board OCR had suggested in its response to the consultation that rules forbidding schools and colleges from telling pupils their grades should be dropped this year to prevent “sudden surprises” and reduce appeals.

But the government has said that although teachers should have a dialogue with students about the evidence that will inform their grade, they can’t tell them the grade itself.

 

9. List of centres for private candidates

Private candidates, such as those not on roll at a school, will be assessed in the same way as other pupils this year, with schools due to be provided with “clear guidance” on evidence they can use to assess them.

A list of available centres will be published “shortly” and the DfE has said it will work with the sector to make sure there are “sufficient centres” available at a “similar cost” to a normal year.

 

10. Plans confirmed for BTECs

Plans for vocational and technical qualifications will depend on the type of qualification.

For VTQs and other general qualifications that are most like GCSEs and A-levels, such as many BTECs and Cambridge Nationals/Technicals, exams will not go ahead.

Instead, teacher assessed grades will be used, based on a similar range of evidence as academic qualifications.

FE Week has the full details here.

The government has today outlined its final decisions for awarding BTEC and other vocational and technical qualification (VTQ) grades this summer.

Following a consultation which ran last month and received just over 3,000 responses, the plans are very similar to the arrangements adopted last year when exams were cancelled.

Awarding VTQs will again be based on three “broad” groups:

• Group 1: those that are most like GCSEs and A-levels
• Group 2: those that are used for direct entry into employment
• Group 3: those not like GCSEs or A-levels but used for progression

Ofqual said it will provide, as they did last year, an online tool that sets out what individual qualifications sit in each category.

Here are the key things you need to know.

 

Teacher assessed grades for group 1

For VTQs and other general qualifications that are most like GCSEs and A-levels, such as many BTECs and Cambridge Nationals/Technicals, exams will not go ahead.

Instead, teacher assessed grades will be used, based on a range of assessment, including coursework, mock exams and internal assessments.

Awarding bodies will issue guidance to providers and colleges about what evidence is needed for teacher assessed grades and timelines for information to be submitted from today (February 25).

 

 

Assessments to go ahead for group 2

VTQs that are used for direct entry into employment and demonstrate occupational or professional competence will see their assessments go ahead as planned in a “Covid-secure way”.

The government says that “alternative arrangements” cannot be used to assess a learner’s competence so their assessment must be delayed and taken at a later date if they cannot be sat at the time scheduled. This might occur in cases where a learner’s practical training has been disrupted by the pandemic.

Subject areas commonly found in this group include construction, accounting, plumbing and automotive.

 

Teacher assessed grades for group 3 if exams  cannot be taken

Assessments for VTQs that are unlike GCSEs and A-levels but are still used for progression, such as functional skills and English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL), should still go ahead in a Covid-secure way or remotely.

If neither of those options are possible then “alternative arrangements” can be used, namely teacher assessed grades (read the full story here).

Again, individual awarding bodies will set out what evidence is needed in such cases from tomorrow.

 

What about T Levels?

Teacher assessed grades will be used for T Level core components this summer.

This is a change from what was proposed in the consultation, which said the assessments should be delayed until the Autumn.

The government said the decision to use teacher assessed grades avoids putting too much pressure on students by delaying assessment until the second year of study.

 

When will students receive their results?

Results for level 2 and 3 VTQs that are needed to secure college or university places will be issued on or before August 10 and 12 to align with GCSEs and A-levels.

But results for other VTQs, such as teacher assessed grades for functional skills learners, will continue to be issued throughout the year like usual but only from April.

 

Appeals will go to schools and colleges first

The government has confirmed its plan set out in the consultation which will allow students who believe their teacher had made an error in their grades to appeal to their school or college in the first instance.

However, there has been a change to the grounds for escalating an appeal to exam boards.

The consultation proposed that appeals could be submitted to exam boards on the basis that a school or college had not acted “in line with the exam board’s procedural requirements”.

But the government said this “did not sufficiently take into account the workload it would place on teachers, as well as the importance for students of having their appeal heard by a third party”.

Under the revised plan, schools and colleges will only have to check for errors and whether their own processes were followed in the first instance.

Then, if students want to take it further, exam boards will review both the school’s or college’s processes and the evidence used to determine a students’ grade to confirm whether the grade was a “reasonable exercise of academic judgement”.

Where the student disagrees with the final result issued by the exam board after the appeal, and believes the process has not been followed correctly, an application can be made to Ofqual’s Exams Procedures Review Service.

There’s no threshold for students to apply, but the grade can go up or down as in normal appeals.

 

Functional skills students can receive teacher assessed grades this year but only if it is not possible to sit their exam either in-person or remotely, the government has finally confirmed.

This will apply to those who have been unable to take the assessment since September 2020 right through to the end of the 2020/21 academic year.

FE Week understands learners who receive their results through this route will be able to do so from April, but questions remain over how many will be in line to receive teacher-assessed grades as many remote proctoring solutions are now being rolled out and lockdown restrictions eased.

Awarding bodies will issue guidance to colleges and providers about what evidence is needed for teacher assessed grades and the timelines for information to be submitted from today (February 25).

The Department for Education and Ofqual confirmed this approach as they set out their final decision on awarding grades for GCSEs, A-levels and vocational and technical qualifications this summer following the cancellation of exams and a consultation.

Providers and thousands of learners, particularly apprentices, have been stuck in limbo and unable to complete their functional skills programme due to Covid-19 restrictions since the start of the academic year.

The issue lies mostly with those in health care settings such as nursing homes, who have not been able to attend their provider’s site to sit the exam, to prevent the spread of the virus.

Association of Employment and Learning Providers chief executive Jane Hickie said that after five months of “battling”, the confirmation that teacher assessments will be permitted “seems almost like a pyrrhic victory for the thousands of apprentices who have been unable to progress”.

She added that it was also “disappointing” that the assessments can’t begin until after Easter on technical grounds which “don’t seem to trouble the Welsh government”.

 

‘Apprentices have been let down very badly by this sorry episode’

Functional skills learners were able to receive calculated results last summer following the cancellation of exams, but Ofqual has until now refused to reintroduce them.

Awarding bodies have meanwhile struggled to introduce remote solutions that allow apprentices to take the assessments either at home or in the workplace without face-to-face invigilation.

But many awarding organisations have now got over this hurdle. The majority are offering remote solutions where learners and apprentices can sit the assessment at home.

The AELP does however anticipate that teacher assessments will be needed despite the lockdown restrictions being lifted and warned that it “may take up to the end of July to clear the logjam of untaken functional skills tests”.

Hickie said that independent training providers, assessors and apprentices are at the “back of the queue” in receiving Covid home testing kits and therefore “safety considerations are likely to lead in a demand for the alternative arrangements allowed by this consultation outcome”.

“Young apprentices have been let down very badly by this sorry episode of complete indifference during an unprecedented pandemic and many of them are now beyond the planned ended dates of their apprenticeship programmes, meaning that they are reliant on their providers to support them unfunded,” she added.

“Not exactly the apprenticeship guarantee that the prime minister had in mind.”

Ofqual has published a guide to awarding functional skills in 2021, which you can read here.

The winners of this year’s Association of Colleges’ Student of the Year Awards have been revealed.

Five learners from across the country have been recognised for their “fantastic work at their respective colleges and local communities” at the association’s virtual CollegesLive event, which has been held today.

AoC president Sally Dicketts said the level of applications to the awards is “extremely high” each year, which “goes to show the fantastic work students are doing in colleges, as well as the lengths colleges go to support their students”.

“It is particularly amazing to see the achievements in such a turbulent year and everyone has done amazingly well and should be extremely proud.”

 

The full list of winners:

 

Young Student of the Year

Winner: Esha Mumtaz, Trafford College Group

Runners-up: Halle Parker, Loughborough College and Grace Prestwood, Oldham College

 

 

 

 

 

 

Apprentice of the Year

Winner: Matthew Moir, Loughborough College

Runners-up: Pippa Culverwell, North Warwickshire and South Leicestershire College

 

 

 

 

 

 

Adult Student of the Year

Winners: Sam Beckett, Middlesbrough College and Scott Yarrington, Walsall College

Runners-up: Imogen Gibbons, The Cornwall College Group

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Higher Education Student of the Year

Winner: Jonathan Morris, Walsall College

Runners-up: Daniel Jennings, Loughborough College and Courtney Pitt, Newcastle & Stafford Colleges Group (NSCG)

A new tool that pre-warns providers and employers when apprenticeship standards are being revised has been launched today by the Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education.

Set to be updated every eight weeks, the first “revisions status report” shows there are 84 standards currently being modified.

The institute said it decided to create the tool after listening to feedback from the sector, with employers and providers complaining about not getting enough notice of when revised standards were upcoming or when they would go live.

Training providers and end-point assessment organisations can now “prepare for the new version, and work with employers and apprentices to ensure all parties are aware of how a new version being issued may impact their choices,” guidance about the reports explained.

“Going forwards, it will improve sector awareness where employers’ or professional bodies’ feedback has led to the creation of multiple versions of a standard.”

The report will also allow the institute to consult the sector on the “appropriate notice period” – the period between all elements of a new version being approved and available to see online, and the date from which it replaces the old version for new starts – for each version change.

Feedback can be provided either via consultation surveys or by emailing the “relevant IfATE relationships manager”, links to which will be provided via the revisions status report, the institute said.

Through the tool, notifications will be added to the individual standard webpages on the IfATE website to flag when a standard is subject to revision and the stage it is at.

 

The four stages of apprenticeship standard revision

The report breaks standards down into the following four different stages of revision:

• Stage 1: Apprenticeship standards that are being revised by the relevant trailblazer
• Stage 2: Revised standards with new draft versions submitted for approval to the institute
• Stage 3: Revised standards with new versions having been approved by the institute subject to certain conditions that are currently being addressed
• Stage 4: Revised standards with the new versions replacing the current versions for new starts on the dates indicated.

The report does not include standards that are currently subject to an IfATE route reviews, as the “process of revising such standards only begins once the route review has been completed”.

The first report can be viewed in full here.

 

Secondary schools and colleges will be allowed to start testing students on-site before March 8, the Department for Education has confirmed.

Increasing numbers of leaders have been calling for clarity on the matter since the announcement earlier this week that learners will be tested four times – the first three on-site – when they return to school and college.

Schools and colleges were originally told they would have to conduct the four tests in the first two weeks after they reopen more widely. But despite leaders being given “discretion” on how students are tested in the first week back, some had raised concerns about the logistics of testing large numbers of pupils in a short period.

The DfE has now confirmed in a bulletin to leaders that schools and colleges may start testing pupils before March 8 “if they would like to do so”.

This means students and pupils “may go to school or college specifically for a test before Monday March 8 if their school or college offers to test them”.

Participation will be voluntary and “at the discretion of each school or college”, and schools and colleges will still be expected to follow operational guidance, the DfE said.

Students being tested before March 8 “must maintain social distance and must go home after their test result”. After schools and colleges reopen officially, learners will be able to start attending for lessons after their first negative result.

Secondary schools and colleges are still expected to do three on-site tests between three and five days apart. Learners will then be asked to conduct their fourth test at home, and then test themselves twice weekly in the weeks thereafter.

The DfE has said that testing at home “should not start” until the week commending March 15.

Schools and colleges will also “need to consider the transport implications of testing before Monday March 8”, the DfE said.

The Department for Education has today launched the registration process to deliver its flagship T Level qualifications from 2023, and has confirmed its Ofsted grade and financial health criteria will be relaxed.

Here are the key things you need to know before applying.

 

Different deadlines to register for planning support and funding

Providers have until midnight on 30 July 2021 to register if they want to received “implementation planning support” for T Level delivery from 2023.

But the DfE is allowing until midnight on 29 July 2022 as the final deadline for providers to register to receive up-front T Level funding from 2023.

In October 2022, the ESFA will collect planned student numbers from providers which registered prior to the deadline, so funding can be provided for 2023/24 academic year.

 

What you need to register

Through a registration form, providers applying to deliver will need to submit their Ofsted rating, any structural changes they have had or whether they have converted to an academy, the T Levels and occupational specialisms they want to deliver, and whether they wish to deliver the T Level Transition Programme.

Providers will also need to give an indication of planned student numbers for the T Levels they wish to deliver.

The Education and Skills Funding Agency warns in the guidance the T Level Transition Programme is in the early development phase, and plans for the next phase of work has not yet been agreed with providers.

It will contact those interested in delivering the programme to share information and confirm a provider’s next steps.

In order to deliver the programme, providers must be planning to deliver a T Level in the same route.

 

The new T Level routes for 2023

The four new routes, encompassing 20 different occupational specialisms between them, are: agricultural, environment and animal care; catering and hospitality; creative and design; and hair and beauty.

This will be the fourth year of the T Level rollout, which started last year with three T Levels in digital, construction, and education and health.

The final year of the rollout will be 2023, and the ESFA says: “This is the point at which we are broadening access to T Levels so that it becomes part of the mainstream offer for all students aged 16, 17 and 18.”

 

Ofsted criteria relaxed for T Level providers

As announced last June, registration to deliver all of the T Levels available from 2023 is open to providers rated as ‘outstanding’ or ‘good’ by Ofsted.

Those rated ‘requires improvement’ or ‘inadequate’ can register to deliver for the first time, from 2023, but only for T Level routes which were introduced in 2020 and 2021: digital; construction; education and health; science.

But they can expand their delivery in 2024 to other routes, from which time any provider delivering 16 to 19 study programmes will be able to run T Levels.

For providers which have restructured or merged, and have not received a full inspection, the ESFA will use the lead provider’s last full inspection grade to determine which T Levels they can run. If there is no lead provider, they will combine the ratings of all providers instead.

And for providers which have converted to an academy and not received a full inspection since, the DfE will use the last grade of the former school or sixth form college.

Although providers should put in their Ofsted grade from the time they register, if that grade changes after then, the ESFA has said it will look at each case individually and “discuss how this might impact on the provider’s delivery planning”.

If it drops to grade three or four, “much will depend on the point this happens in the planning process and the improvement work which is necessary,” the guidance reads.

If a grade improves and the provider wishes to extend their delivery, there is a cut-off date of 29 July 2022 for taking that new result into account.

“After this, providers will have less than one year to prepare for T Levels delivery, so we would consider this to be too late to change their delivery plans,” the ESFA says.

 

Financial health rules removed

As reported by FE Week in June, providers will also no longer have to submit evidence of prior experience of delivering similar subjects or financial health to deliver T Levels from 2023.

“All providers currently funded to deliver 16 to 19 study programmes will be eligible to deliver some of the available T Levels” from then, the DfE has promised.

 

Any questions?

Anyone with a query has been asked to submit an ESFA enquiry form, with the ‘some other related/16 to 19 related query’ option selected, and with ‘T Levels 2023’ in the query box, alongside the provider’s name and UKPRN.