What are the arrangements for Entry Level Certificates (GQ) in 2020/21?

As part of the arrangements for Entry Level students to receive results this summer, you will need to submit teacher assessed grades to us via our Grade Submission System by 18 June 2021. We therefore wanted to provide some support on how to determine your teacher assessed grades.

Review the changes for summer 2021

We have made changes to Entry Level qualifications due to the impact of coronavirus. Our overview of all the changes is available on the OCR website. You may find it useful to refer to these before submitting your teacher assessed grades to check if any of the changes affect the grades you are giving.

Mark work as you would do normally

You should mark the work produced as you usually would. If you have not marked Entry Level before or would like to refresh yourself, you can find exemplars and moderator reports on the OCR website under the Assessment tab for each Entry Level qualification. Some further assessment guidance are available in documents such as the qualification specification or NEA guide.

Apply grade boundaries

Apply the grade boundaries found in the specification for your Entry Level qualifications to determine the overall qualification grade. If there are no specific grade boundaries given for your qualification, you should use the 2019 grade boundaries.

What to do about incomplete work

Your students do not need to have covered all of the content for the course and you should only assess content which you have taught. 

If your students are not able to complete all of the required assessments, you can use any alternative or supplementary evidence from across the course of study to cover the assessment gaps. Any such assessment evidence should demonstrate similar skills, knowledge and understanding and can be used when making final grading decisions for the qualification.

You should not attempt to predict an outcome or award a mark according to a learner’s potential. You should still aim to apply the standard marking criteria for the missing assessment task and assess the degree to which the alternative/supplementary evidence meets the overall assessment criteria, in its whole entirety.

Does the JCQ Guidance for GCSE/As and A Level apply to Entry Level (GQ)?

The teacher assessed grades process in the JCQ Guidance on the JCQ website covers Entry Level although there are minor differences in the quality assurance process – please see below.

Quality assurance process for Entry Level (GQ)

We can confirm that the sampling process for our Entry Level Qualifications will align with those of our Cambridge National and Cambridge Technical qualifications. We’ll randomly select schools and colleges for the quality assurance checks. We’ll let you know by 25 June if you’ve been selected and we'll ask you to submit evidence and records for five students. 

The evidence required will include:

• candidate work
• a record of grading decisions for these candidates
• a record of why outcomes might be different from historic outcome at cohort level (where applicable).

You can read more in our guidance on grading and sampling for Entry Level Qualifications, which also includes specific details for schools and colleges in Northern Ireland. 

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