Preparing for Moderation

Assessment window dates for the moderated components of the Occupational Specialism (OS) are outlined in the Key Date Schedule (KDS) within the Qualification pages. 

Assessment window dates for the non-exam assessments (NEA) are outlined in tutor guide on the Qualification pages. 

Assessment materials will be available to download from the Portal. For guidance on accessing assessment materials, view our short video. 

It’s important that you maintain accurate assessment records so they can be moderated during remote moderation. Should these records lack sufficient detail to allow remote moderation to take place, the provider will be required to observe students again, which will delay student results for the full co-hort.  

The Moderator will remotely view a sample of your assessment records during moderation and provide feedback on the completion of the assessment records within their moderation report.  

Tips for maintaining accurate assessment records

In advance of the assessment:

• familiarise yourself with the required assessment record templates. These can be downloaded from the Qualification page within the Tutor Guides.
• ensure any recording devices are fully charged and have the required storage capacity.
• refer to our Guidance around having a professional discussion and Guidance around conducting an observation (use this video to support this guidance), if required.

The Portal will close at the end of the assessment window, as outlined in the Key Date Schedule (T Level) or Tutor Guides (V Cert (Technical Awards)) on the Qualification pages. 

All student marks must be entered before the Portal closes and any inactive students withdrawn. For guidance on submitting marks, watch our How to submit provider marks for moderation video resource.

If the assessment has different assessment window end dates, for example part 1 and part 2. Marks must be entered before the assessment window closes for each part.

Moderation can only take place once marks have been submitted for the full co-hort. Failure to do this may impact final moderation, delay results and will result in an action on your annual monitoring review (AMR) report.

If you need support withdrawing a student, please contact [email protected] (T Level) or [email protected] (V Cert (Technical Awards)).  

If a student did not attend an assessment, submit a did not attend (DNA) mark.   

You must inform students of their marks prior to submitting to NCFE to allow students the opportunity to request a review of provider marking. 

Once the Portal closes, students selected for moderation will be displayed in the Portal the following day. For information watch our view students selected for moderation and upload evidence video resource.

You must upload the required evidence for each student to the Portal within three working days of the assessment window closing. Checklists detailing the evidence requirements will be included with the assessment packs.

If the assessment has different assessment window end dates, for example for part 1 and part 2, the sampling plan will be available the day after the final assessment window closes. Evidence for all parts should be uploaded together.

Following initial moderation should the Moderator need to moderate the entire cohort you’ll be contacted. We’ll contact the Programme Contact to request this so please be prepared. Once prompted we will expect evidence to be submitted via the Portal in three working days.

Failure to submit evidence within the required timescales will result in delays to final moderation and student results. This will also affect your provider's risk rating following moderation. Failing to submit evidence may result in potential maladministration and will be referred to our Provider Assurance team for further review.   

Tips for uploading files

• File names must include the student’s name and the name of the task
• Where possible, files should be no bigger than 1GB
• Up to 10 files, with an individual file size limit of 2GB can be uploaded at one time
• Larger file sizes will take longer to upload
• Files larger than 2GB will need to be compressed
• Zip files cannot be uploaded.

If you need support uploading student evidence, contact [email protected] (T Level) or [email protected] (V Cert (Technical Awards)).

Internal standardisation materials are now available to providers on the Portal. This CPD package is designed to bring your teams together to align assessment decisions and expectations for the externally moderated components of the occupational specialism.  

It’s mandatory for providers to complete the training by 29 February 2024. Once completed, a declaration must be signed and returned to NCFE to show it has been done. This declaration will also confirm that administration training has been completed. 

Benefits of this training 

• Consistency and marking - the training will help you establish a unified understanding of the assessment criteria 
• Fairness and equity - achieving consistency in marking enhances fairness and equity. It will minimize the chances of subjective bias and ensure that all students receive an impartial assessment 
• Improved communication - this training will allow and encourage an open dialogue amongst your staff. It will give opportunities to discuss challenges, clarify doubts and build collaboration 
• Enhanced professional development - the training allows staff to develop their professional growth. They should gain insight from colleagues and improve their understanding and execution of assessment 
• Time saving - by aligning the assessment decisions of your teams, you will reduce the time spent on recalibrating assessment decisions. This streamlined training approach ensures that your efforts are applied and focused on providing valuable feedback and reliable assessment to your students. 

Where can I find the internal standardisation materials? 

Once you’ve booked your students onto the chosen Occupational Specialism (OS), you need to: 

• log on to the Portal 
• go to the ‘Bookings’ tab and click ‘View Assessments’ 
• search for a batch number or product code to find learners on the relevant qualification/assignment you’d like to access training for 
• select all students 
• scroll to the bottom and click ‘view bookings’ 
• click the drop down for the desired component/assessment series. 

You’ll see headings for each assignment, the standardisation materials for moderated assignments are located under the moderated assignment heading. Click ‘Show Details’ to view the materials and then click them to download. 

If there are two parts to the assignment the materials will be located under Part 2. 

Visit our Qualification pages and read the Qualification Specification. Within these pages you’ll find lots of supporting materials around assessment controls and conditions, the records you need to keep and the materials and equipment you need to make available to your students, where applicable. 

Visit our Frequently Asked Questions page for questions around moderation. 

Our Prepare to Assess events develop confidence and understanding of grading criteria when assessing learners' responses to the internally-assessed units.

At present, we don't have any future Prepare to Assess events planned. We do have a recording of a Prepare to Assess event that we recommend watching and this can be located on our YouTube channel.

Watch now

Our Provider Development team offer a range of sessions to support providers. Visit our events pages (V Cert (Technical Awards)) and T Level events page (T Level) to view events and register your attendance. 

If you’re unable to attend, we recommend you register as a recording will be available on the above pages following the event.  

This will be available to view on the Portal on results day and will highlight areas where your provider has performed well and areas for improvement. It will also include the mark used for each moderated component. The mark used will be one of the following: 

Provider mark – Confirms that the provider mark has been accepted for all students within the cohort. This means that the provider marks were within tolerance of the Moderator’s marks.  

Regressed mark – Confirms that the regressed mark has been applied to all students in the cohort. This means that the provider marks were outside of tolerance and in a consistent way (ie all marks are higher or lower than the Moderator’s marks). 

Moderator mark – Confirms that the Moderator mark has been applied to all students in the cohort. This means that: 

• the provider marks are outside of tolerance and in a consistent way, however moderator marks are available for all students in the co-hort. Or 
• the provider marks were outside of tolerance and in an inconsistent way (ie some marks were higher and some were lower than the Moderator’s mark and the provider mark could not reliably be adjusted so the Moderator sampled all students in the cohort. 

The CM report which will be available on our website provides an overview of the moderated assignment including examples of good practice and where further development may be needed. 

This provides an overview of the results for all assignments completed as part of the OS, the student’s overall mark and overall grade. 

This provides an overview of the raw marks awarded to each student for all assignments completed as part of the OS, the student’s overall mark and overall grade.