Vocational qualifications arrangements update
03 July 2020
This update has been revised since originally published on 19 June. We have now provided further guidance on adapted assessments, which can be viewed on the vocational qualifications area of the OCR Support Centre.
During this challenging period, awarding organisations are following exceptional requirements set out by the regulators, Ofqual, CCEA and Qualifications Wales. This guidance allows awarding bodies to issue results as follows:
- It allows awarding organisations to issue calculated results for qualifications which have a primary purpose of progression on to further or higher education.
- For qualifications with a primary purpose of progression into or through employment, calculated results are not appropriate. There may be some changes made to assessments to enable remote delivery/assessment and this is referred to as an adapted assessment.
- For some qualifications, the only option is to delay the assessment, as there is no way of validly calculating a result or adapting the assessment in a way that does not undermine confidence in the qualifications. Students taking these qualifications will have to wait to sit assessments at the next available opportunity.
The aim is to enable as many students as possible to receive a result for OCR assessments they planned to take in spring/summer 2020. After discussions with the regulator, Ofqual, and other awarding organisations, we are putting the following arrangements in place for each OCR qualification:
Calculated result
- Life and Living Skills
- Using ICT (Entry 3)
Adapted assessment
- Administration (Business Professional)
- Advice and Guidance
- Business Administration
- Career Information and Advice/Career Guidance and Development
- Customer Service
- Digital Employability (Entry 1 and Entry 2)
- Health and Social Care Leadership and Management
- IT User Skills (ITQ)
- Support Work in Schools/Supporting Teaching and Learning in Schools
- Teaching and Assessing Learners with Dyslexia/Specific Learning Difficulties (SpLD)
- Team Leading, Management and Leadership
Delayed assessment
- Certificates of Professional Competence for Transport Managers (CPC)
- Digital Employability (Entry 3 and Level 1)
- Preparing for a Business Venture
Calculated results
If you have students who were expecting to complete assessments between 20 March and 31 July 2020, we will work with you to provide a calculated result for Life and Living Skills and Using ICT (Entry 3).
The window to provide grades to OCR is 29 June to 17 July.
In order to prepare for this:
- Please do not make any new Life and Living Skills claims on Interchange or submit folders that have not been internally assessed yet for Using ICT (Entry 3) units.
- If you have already completed and internally assessed work ready to submit to OCR, these can be submitted by 24 June 2020 using the standard submission process. However, there is no requirement to do so. We will work with you to provide a calculated result if you cannot submit completed assessments in the usual way. We will not be accepting any further submissions using the standard process after 24 June - you must use the calculated result (centre assessment grade) process.
Adapted assessments
We can now provide you with more information about how you can adapt assessments to allow remote assessment or remote verification for each qualification.
Please see the vocational qualifications area of the OCR Support Centre for further guidance.
For moderated qualifications, you may not need to adapt these assessments if you have work already completed, internally assessed and ready to submit to your OCR moderator. This may be submitted in the usual way with the exception of the submission cover sheet. A summer 2020 version of the cover sheet is available from the vocational qualifications area of the OCR Support Centre. This must be submitted with your evidence.
Delayed assessments
We will offer assessment opportunities for these qualifications when it is safe to do so and will keep you updated with our next steps.
More information is available in our vocational qualifications FAQ area.
If you have any queries, please call our Customer Support Centre on 01223 553998 or email us at vocational.qualifications@ocr.org.uk.
Qualifications