We know that challenging circumstances arise, or events outside of your control mean that things don’t always go to plan.
Therefore, it’s essential to have contingency plans in place to mitigate the impact of any potential disruption and minimise the impact on your learners.
Our External Assessment Contingency Planning Policy offers guidance on the contingency planning your centre should carry out in advance and ensure all colleagues are aware of the measures in place. Within this guidance, examples of disruption to consider include (but are not limited to):
- criminal activity (for example, bomb threat or cyber-attack)
- incidents within the local community
- industrial action
- public health incidents (for example, flu pandemic)
- serious injury to a learner or member of staff
- severe weather (for example, flooding)
- significant damage to centre property (for example, fire)
- supply shortages (for example, transport issues).
When drafting contingency plans, you should consider the following guidance:
In the event of widespread local or national disruption, you should look for timely information shared by the regulators in England (Ofqual), Wales (Qualifications Wales), and Northern Ireland (CCEA Regulation), as well as the relevant governmental departments in England, Wales, and Northern Ireland. You must also ensure that you’re monitoring other relevant local and national agencies, as well as any communication shared by NCFE.
For full information on contingency planning, please refer to our External Assessment Contingency Planning Policy.
Resilience arrangements
These arrangements are to support in the unlikely event that government determines that exams are not able to go ahead, they are not designed to be used to award grades due to localised disruptions.
Guidance
For qualifications and external assessments in scope, centres should plan assessment opportunities to gather evidence of learner performance in line with their usual assessment approaches (unless they conclude that there is any reason to vary them to ensure they have collected appropriate evidence).
Evidence gathered should be sufficient that centres feel confident that, taken together, the evidence is an appropriate assessment of the knowledge, understanding and skills of the learner.
Further information can be found Guidance on collecting evidence of student performance to ensure resilience in the qualifications system.
Impact on NCFE qualifications
Performance table qualifications
- Those qualifications most similar to GCSEs and A Levels within the NCFE portfolio should follow the Ofqual guidance. This includes T Levels, V Certs, and CACHE qualifications with an external assessment which carry UCAS or performance points.
Functional Skills (including Digital Functional Skills, and Essential Digital Skills)
- These qualifications are on-demand, with more frequent external examination and assessment opportunities throughout the year. In addition, they have on-screen assessments and/or remote invigilation solutions to provide greater resilience.
- As such, they are not expected to be included in these resilience arrangements.
All other NCFE qualifications
- Where the qualification does not have exams, centres should still aim to complete assessments wherever possible. Please note though that no additional assessment or evidence is required beyond that which is already being completed.
Qualifications which assess occupational competence, or act as a license to practice
- These qualifications, including end-point assessments for apprentices, would not be awarded on the basis of alternative evidence. Therefore, they are not in scope for these resilience arrangements.
