Thank you to those that got in touch with us last week regarding our announcement which indicated Standards Verification would continue. 

We are sorry to have not explained this in more detail until now, but we have clarified in this update.

Thank you for your questions and feedback following the outcomes of the joint DfE and Ofqual consultation, announced last week.

We understand that you are keen to have more information as soon as possible, and whilst we have been in close conversation with Ofqual, DfE and other Awarding Organisations over the past few weeks, we have needed to wait until the final announcements before being able to finalise the guidance and support we will provide you with. Please also note the announcement of the Technical consultation, launched by Ofqual last week, which seeks feedback on some of the processes for this year’s arrangements.

You can find a high-level timeline of the activities for this year in this document. 

You have told us that you want definitive information as soon as it is available, so we intend to provide clear guidance of confirmed processes as soon as they are ready, for qualifications that are in scope of alternative arrangements, this will include:

• List of qualifications within scope of this year’s arrangements for awarding
• Guidance for licence-linked qualifications
• Initial guidance and preparation for submission of Qualification-level Teacher Assessed Grades (TAGs)
• Initial guidance on evidence that could be used to inform the Qualification-level TAG
• The actions you will take for learners not due to certificate this summer (‘mid-flight’ learners).

In the meantime, we can confirm that external entries for Summer 2021 should be made by 25 March 2021. Please see our updated BTEC FAQs on this point.

This year it is particularly important that your learner records are up to date and reflect the estimated completion dates for those who you expect to certificate. Qualification-level TAGs can only be submitted for learners who are due to certificate this summer, and we will use learner records to identify these learners from your centre.

Here are the steps you should take:

1. Check that all registrations have been made for learners currently undertaking a qualification at your centre are accurate. Complete the following further checks for each cohort of learners:

a. Correct qualification suite
b. Correct qualification size
c. Correct qualification pathway, if appropriate

2. Undertake an historic audit of all active registrations at your centre, withdrawing learners who are no longer expected to complete and are no longer on programme. Please be advised that this will not generate a refund for the withdrawn registration but will ensure we can support you more accurately with relevant arrangements for this year.

3. Ensure any registration transfers to a larger or smaller qualification size, or to an alternative qualification suite or pathway, have been completed.

4. Check that unit delivery for each cohort matches the unit combinations for the appropriate qualification suite, size and pathway. If not, submit the Meeting Local Needs form so the temporary structure can be set up.

5. Ensure that the most current guidance for external assessment entries has been reviewed and is being followed.

6. Update the estimated completion date for each learner registration in Edexcel Online to reflect when you anticipate the learners to complete their qualification. This will help us give you the right support for this year’s alternative arrangements. The following completion date or date ranges should be entered in EOL.

For further guidance on any of the above, please contact Pearson support.

In response to centre feedback and in light of disruption to teaching and learning, eligible qualifications with a certification end date of 2021 have been extended to 2022 to allow for completion. Please see this list of qualifications that have been extended.

Please note, no additional external assessment windows will be available beyond what has already been communicated.

Following the January announcement of the consultation on alternative arrangements where all examinations have been cancelled except for qualifications linked to a license to practise, we can confirm that external assessments that are mapped to license to practise criteria will continue.

There are specific requirements for each CPLD qualification including some where external assessments will not be required this year, and we would therefore encourage you to carefully check the detail below.

For external assessments which are taking place in either March or June 2021, learners will need to achieve a minimum of a pass grade for these units, to be able to certificate in Summer 2021.

We are now able to confirm the following external assessment arrangements:

• Pearson BTEC Level 2 Technical Diploma in Children's Play, Learning and Development (Early Years Practitioner) 603/0509/5

• Pearson BTEC Level 3 National Extended Certificate in Children’s Play, Learning and Development (360 GLH) 601/7569/2 and Pearson BTEC Level 3 National Foundation Diploma in Children’s Play, Learning and Development (540 GLH) 601/7570/9

Learners who are certificating in Summer 2021 or 2022 and will not be topping up or transferring to one of the Early Year Educator Qualifications listed below, do not need to sit the external assessments that they would have sat this academic year and will follow the alternative arrangements for awarding a qualification in 2021 which will be announced soon. 

If the learner will be transferring or topping up to an Early Year Educator qualification listed below, they will need to sit the two external assessed units (unit 1 and unit 2) either this academic year, or in 2022 before they are able to claim certification for an Early Year Educator qualification.

Early Year Educator Qualifications 

• Pearson BTEC Level 3 National Diploma in Children’s Play, Learning and Development (Early Years Educator) (720 GLH) 601/7571/0 and Pearson BTEC Level 3 National Extended Diploma in Children’s Play, Learning and Development (Early Years Educator) (1080 GLH) 601/7572/2.

Learners will need to sit unit 1: Children’s Development, and unit 2: Development of Children's Communication, Literacy and Numeracy Skills, external assessments, and will need to achieve a minimum of Pass grade in order to be able to certificate in Summer 2021 or Summer 2022.

We can confirm that the Unit 4: Enquiries into Current Research in Early years Practice, external assessment in Summer 2021 has been cancelled (normally only available in the extended diploma) certificating learners will be awarded under the guidance for alternative arrangements, which will take into account that this unit is not linked to the licence to practise.

Summary of external assessments:

External assessments for the following qualifications, which have a core purpose of progression, are also cancelled for 2021, and qualifications will be awarded under the alternative arrangements once announced.

• Pearson BTEC Level 1/Level 2 Tech Award in Child Development 603/1914/8
• Pearson BTEC Level 1/Level 2 First Award in Children’s Play, Learning and Development 600/6814/0
• Pearson BTEC Level 1/Level 2 First Certificate in Children’s Play, Learning and Development 600/7865/0

We hope you received the recent email about our review of the adaptations currently available for BTEC Nationals Sport, Fitness and Personal Training (2019).

We wanted to remind you of the following update for centres that have registrations on the following qualifications, as this may impact the use of 'Reduced Internal Assessment’ adaptations:

• Pearson BTEC Level 3 National Extended Certificate in Sport and Fitness (603/4925/6)
• Pearson BTEC Level 3 National Foundation Diploma in Sport and Fitness (603/4927/X)
• Pearson BTEC Level 3 National Diploma in Sport, Fitness and Personal Training (603/4928/1)
• Pearson BTEC Level 3 National Extended Diploma in Sport, Fitness and Personal Training (603/4929/3).

Update

For all BTEC RQF 2019 Sport Qualifications, please note the following units:  

• C1, C2, C4, D1, D2, D4, 24 and 25 and mapped to CIMSPA or IOL respectively and cannot be included in any reduction(s)
• For learners on or progressing onto the Diploma and or the Extended Diploma in Sport, Fitness and Personal Training U4 and U21 also cannot be included in any reduction(s)
• Unit E can only be taken in the second year of delivery.

Full details can be found in our Reduced unit assessment guidance BTEC Firsts, Level 2 and BTEC Nationals document.

We wanted to remind you that the qualifications below are linked to License to Practise and will be sampled in line with the previously published sample size guidance.

• Pearson BTEC Level 3 Diploma in Dental Technology 601/3492/6     
• Pearson BTEC Level 3 Extended Diploma in Dental Technology 601/3493/8. 

Your Standards Verifier should be in contact with the centre to arrange the appropriate full sample for certificating learners.

Please note, for BTEC programmes that fall under the BTEC Lead SV Risk Rating model and have had a ‘low risk’ programme rating assigned this academic year, standards verification sampling will not take place. Centres should however retain all learner evidence and assessment documentation.

Certification for Low Control programmes will not be released until the summer following quality assurance checks of grades claimed. Allocations in this category will show as ‘Dr Low Control’ in Edexcel Online.

External assessment results for the January 2021 BTEC First and National series will be released on Wednesday 17 March. Results will be issued for all learners who sat the external assessments in the January series. Where a learner was absent, or your centre cancelled the assessments, an “Absent” result will be issued. 

Unit results will only be issued to absent learners when:

• they are due to complete their qualification by the end of March
• they have completed relevant internal assessment
• an application for Special Consideration for their January external assessment has been submitted.

Please be assured that learners who are due to certificate in summer, and were marked absent for their January sitting, or attended the assessment, but may have not performed as expected, are in scope for the Qualification-level Teacher Assessed Grade, to ensure these learners are not disadvantaged.

We are planning to run a few more online sessions, aimed specifically at BTEC Quality Nominees, which you are welcome to register for. Please be assured that recordings of sessions will be made available, and we still have space on the following times:

• Tuesday 16 March 3-4pm
• Thursday 18 March 1-2pm 
• Thursday 18 March 4-5pm 
• Monday 22 March 12-1pm

Register for 'QN Briefing: Awarding arrangement for 2021'

To support centres delivering BTEC Level 1/2 and 3 qualifications, we will be also be delivering a series of online sector-specific BTEC Customer Briefing sessions, which will give you an opportunity to: 

• Interact with the BTEC specialists for your sector(s)
• Discuss your current thoughts and concerns
• Exchange best practice with colleagues and the BTEC sector team facilitating the sessions.

You can book your free sector specific sessions here, using the filter for the appropriate BTEC in the Qualification drop-down.

In the lead up to the announcements of the joint DfE and Ofqual consultation outcomes we had received questions regarding the availability of Functional Skills tests now and in the coming months, and whether centres would be able to submit ‘Teacher Assessed Grades’ instead. 

Our Functional Skills tests are still available on-demand and it is now clear that live testing is required to continue for all Functional Skills assessments at all levels. We already have several adaptations available to support you and your learners to access their tests. Therefore, you should plan accordingly with the expectation that learners who have completed teaching and learning and have been prepared for assessment are able to take a live test when they are ready to do so, using adaptations if required. 

While an alternative approach will be an option for some learners, this must only be used as a last resort where it can clearly be demonstrated that the learner(s) affected have been fully prepared for the assessment; have suitable supporting evidence in place and have no means of taking a live assessment either remotely or face to face in centre.

We are working closely with Ofqual and other awarding organisations to provide clear guidance on the detail of the alternative arrangement and will share this with you as soon as it is available.

As part of our commitment to enable learners to access on-demand tests when they are ready to be assessed, we will soon be offering our full solution for remote invigilation for our reformed Functional Skills English and Maths onscreen tests and EPA onscreen tests.

You can find out more on our new webpage dedicated to this new service.

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 2.30-3.30pm
  

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 on our website, by searching for Functional Skills in the Qualification drop-down.

The ESFA and DfE have announced that certain apprentices can now access Gateway without completing their Functional Skills in advance. These learners would then have up to three months to go back and complete their Functional Skills. 

Full details are available in this document.