Ofqual announced that Awarding Organisation’s will categorise their qualifications into three groups.

We have been working with other Awarding Organisations and Ofqual to ensure that the categories we assign our Vocational Qualifications consider the purpose of the qualification, and are aligned across where similar qualifications exist. We are sharing the categories we have assigned to our qualifications with you today, so you can start to plan for the permitted arrangements.

Ofqual’s technical consultation concludes today, and whilst the outcome of this will indicate how we approach processes relating to the awarding arrangements this year, we are releasing our initial guidance today – so that you can start to make the plans. The guidance includes learner eligibility, the steps you will take to make a holistic Q-TAG judgement and common sources of alternative evidence. We will update this guidance with additional confirmed information once we have the consultation outcomes towards the end of March and as finer details are confirmed.

You have told us you want confirmed information as soon it’s available, so we have chosen to release our guidance today, and will continue to add confirmed information as the extra details are confirmed. We hope that this document will support you over the coming weeks.

We are also today launching our new webpage for the awarding arrangements for BTEC. We will keep all information for BTEC on this page, but it will also provide links to other resources for other vocational qualifications.

You can sign up to one of our BTEC events to find out more about the process that’s been put in place this year. Please use the filter for the appropriate BTEC in the Qualification drop-down.

We’ve heard from some centres with additional questions on Standards Verification following our clarification statement.

Where units are completed or partially completed, Standards Verifiers will give support and feedback on unit-level standards application, which we believe will support centres when they go on to make their holistic Q-TAG judgements.

Standards Verification will not serve to 'release' or 'block' certification this year. It will function as a process to ensure that centres can build confidence, through internal assessment, to determine Qualification-level Teacher Assessed Grades.

Please do also refer to our FAQs (Standards Verification section) which are regularly updated.

On 17 March 2021 we are issuing unit-level results for learners who sat an exam in the BTEC January 2021 series.

Where a college or school was able to offer external assessments as planned; their learners will be receiving a result for these units next week. As in previous years, this will allow them to either complete their qualification as scheduled in March if planned or ‘bank’ it in order to complete their qualification at a later date.

If a school or college was not able to offer vocational exams in January, we will award a grade for any learner who was unable to take their exams and has enough evidence to receive a certificate if their certification date was March 2021. For learners due to certificate in summer 2021, the Q-TAG guidance for certificating learners applies.

To be as fair as we can to students in the January series, who have continued to face disruption to their teaching and learning due to the ongoing COVID-19 situation, we looked to carry forward the standard from summer 2020 grades, the majority of which were based on centre assessment grades. We are clear that students sitting exams this January must be treated as fairly as possible, alongside students from summer 2020. To do this we have:

• Relied much more heavily on the judgement of expert senior examiners looking at the quality of student work.
• Examiners were guided by ‘proxy’ grade boundaries. We have generated these by looking at how far the January 2020 grade boundaries for each unit would have to move to achieve the proportion of students at the key grades we saw for each of those in summer 2020.
• ‘Archive’ student work, as well as several other sources of evidence, were also considered.

We continue working closely with Ofqual and other awarding organisations to finalise TAG guidance for these qualifications. While the finalised guidance is not yet available, we remind you that:

• Live testing is still available and will remain the first option where it is safe to do so
• Adaptations to enable live testing to take place safely are available. If you wish to make use of one of the adaptations you must apply for permission as outlined on the webpage.

Our current understanding of the proposed TAG process is that:

• an individual learner will be eligible if the centre can demonstrate they are unable to access a live assessment or any of the adaptions, by the time they require an outcome, in a way which meets current PHE guidelines. In all cases, suitable evidence of attainment must be in place
• a Functional Skills TAG approach will not be put in place until the regulatory arrangements have been finalised. This cannot happen until Ofqual’s current regulatory arrangements consultation is closed and the outcome is published.

From 25 February, eligible apprentices can start their end-point assessment (EPA) before they achieve their functional skills qualifications if they have been waiting for the opportunity to access functional skills assessments but have been prevented from doing so due to coronavirus (COVID-19) restrictions.

This flexibility is only available to apprentices where all possibilities to access FSQ assessment via face-to-face and remote assessment have been exhausted, and they have confirmed their intent to continue and complete their FSQ within three months of starting their EPA. Confirmation of this must also be evidenced in the learner file/evidence pack.

Apprentices who are waiting to take their FSQ assessment now have the opportunity to pass through gateway and take their EPA without any further delay. To be eligible to take their EPA before achieving the required functional skills qualifications, the apprentice must:

• not be on a break in learning (an apprentice may return from a break in learning to take their end-point assessment)
• meet all other gateway criteria to progress to their EPA as specified in the apprenticeship standard (except meeting the English and maths requirements)
• have been confirmed by you and their employer as ready for both their EPA, and to take a functional skills qualification assessment
• start their EPA on or before 31 May 2021.

We have created a series of Q&A online events for Functional Skills, looking forward to plans for summer where you will have an opportunity to ask questions of our qualification expert.

The dates are as follows:

Functional Skills Q&A FE

• Friday 12 March 11-12pm
• Tuesday 16 March 10-11am
• Wednesday 17 March 2.30-3.30p

Functional Skills Q&A WBL

• Friday 12 March 9.30-10.30am
• Tuesday 16 March 11.30-12.30pm
• Wednesday 17 March 1.00-2.00pm

You can sign up for any of the above dates, by searching for Functional Skills in the Qualification drop-down.