Support Work in Schools/Supporting Teaching and Learning in Schools (04464-04470): Centre guidance on adaptations for 2020/21 and 2021/22

We have updated this guidance document following two consultations on the arrangements for assessment and awarding of VTQs in 2020-21:

• On 25 February 2021, the Department for Education (England) and Ofqual published the outcome to their joint consultation on arrangements for assessment and awarding of VTQs in 2021.
• On 24 March 2021 Ofqual published the outcome of its consultation on a VTQ Contingency Regulatory Framework (VCRF).

The Government’s policy position is that for VTQs used to enter directly into employment, exams or assessments should continue where they are critical to demonstrate occupational or professional competence, proficiency or act as a license to practice and can be delivered in line with Public Health England measures. It would not be safe to award these qualifications using alternative approaches to awarding such as a teacher judgement. Where the assessment cannot take place safely, it will need to be delayed. 

Our Supporting Teaching and Learning in Schools qualifications assess occupational/professional competency. We are keeping in place the adaptations in this guidance document. This centre guidance is to support you and your candidates to complete assessment, while following public health guidance.

Throughout this guidance we use the term ‘learner’ to mean the individual who is being assessed for or receiving support/specialist teaching. ‘Candidate’ refers to the person taking the OCR qualification.

OCR quality assurance processes

Given the current circumstances, we are reviewing how we can ensure our processes continue to maintain standards while remaining accessible for as many centres and candidates as possible.

For moderated qualifications, please see our guidance on submission.

For verified qualifications, the ‘normal’ EQA visits will not be possible under the current circumstances, so EQAs will conduct their processes remotely with you..

We will take a slightly different approach to sampling, for example identifying the sample up-front and only requesting those portfolios needed but then requesting more if needed.  Our aim is to ensure our processes continue to maintain standards while remaining accessible for as many centres and candidates as possible.

It is important for all internal assessments that robust monitoring processes are implemented by your centre.  These monitoring processes should include effective dialogue with candidates where needed to ensure the evidence being generated is both individual and authentic.

These adaptations are in place for the 2020/21 academic year.  We encourage you to complete the assessment and submission process at the earliest opportunity.

Equalities and Objectivity

It is important that any adaptations to assessment consider the ability of some groups of candidates to access them and, as far as possible, ensure that any adaptations do not advantage or disadvantage any candidate.

For candidates with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND), centres will be best placed to accommodate this when making adapted assessments available for their students. Reasonable adjustments and access arrangements must be made available and recognised wherever possible.

If you require any guidance or support about making reasonable adjustments for your candidates, please contact the OCR Special Requirements Team on srteam@ocr.org.uk.

Professional discussions and witness testimonies must be fair and evidence-based to reflect what the candidate has achieved.  When leading conversations, writing testimonies or reviewing evidence you should continue to be aware of the potential effects of candidates’ characteristics (including protected characteristics) on assessment judgements and ensure that they are not affecting your judgements. Protected characteristics are legally defined and include a candidate’s sex, race, religion/belief, disability, gender reassignment or sexual orientation.

Guidance on the importance of objectivity and avoiding unconscious bias can be taken from the section in Ofqual’s publication for schools and colleges who are providing centre assessment grades for students taking GCSEs, A levels and other performance tables qualifications.  The section ‘Unconscious effects on objectivity’ is applicable to centre assessment in general.  

Permitted adaptations

The rationale for the types of adaptations is to mitigate the impact of disruption already caused to teaching and learning and to respond to any ongoing or future public health measures so that candidates are able to complete their qualification and progress.  Disruption may prevent candidates from completing the qualification in the normal way. 

These adaptations are for anybody taking qualifications from this suite, whether they are starting to work towards the qualification this year or continuing on programme and intending to finish this year or later.  The adaptations are in place only for the academic year 2020/21.  

Normally, direct (face-to-face) observation of practical activities carried out in a real work setting is used to evidence competency.  Simulated activities are not permitted to demonstrate competency unless this is stated within a unit.  Evidence of knowledge requirements is normally produced from written work supported with real work examples/activity as a context and centres use sufficient levels of supervision to authenticate the work of the candidate. 

For candidates who have been unable to complete their assessment due to disruption caused by the pandemic, they and their centre are permitted to:

• Use witness testimonies or professional discussion as an alternative to gathering further written evidence from candidates.
• Cross-referencing to previous achievements in other units
• Use video-meeting technologies to carry out learner assessments and teaching practice remotely
• Use video-meeting or audio-only technologies to observe teaching practice taking place remotely
• Use cases study material on which to base analyses and evaluations

Please note that in the case of witness testimonies, the witness must be someone who works directly with the candidate and therefore understands and knows the candidate’s work role and performance and is in a position to comment on the candidate’s skills and observe the candidate’s work activities. Statements/testimonies from others (e.g. parents of a learner the candidate has worked with) may be included but cannot be considered as primary evidence for assessment purposes.

Where candidates are undertaking practical activities (including simulation where applicable) using video-meeting technologies and these need to be watched by a centre assessor in order to meet the observation requirements of a unit, then either the centre assessor must be able to watch them remotely in real-time and complete an observation record and authenticate them, or they must be recorded (ideally an audio-visual recording; but audio only is acceptable as long as clear and candidate can be identified) for the centre assessor to then observe and authenticate.

Where candidates are completing practical activities using video-meeting technologies so that they have met the required number of hours teaching/delivery but they have already been observed by centre assessors, these activities do not require audio-visual or audio recordings.

If for any reason you cannot adapt the assessments in the ways described whilst ensuring the required level of supervision and checks to authenticate the evidence that is being produced, the assessments will have to be delayed until it is safe to continue with them as normal.

Permissible adaptations - Knowledge requirements

It should be possible to generate knowledge-based evidence in the normal way.

Within these qualifications, the following units require candidates to demonstrate their knowledge and understanding only (but this should be related to their specific school):

Level 2 and Level 3 Award qualifications (04464 and 04467)

• All units are knowledge-based

Level 2 Certificate qualifications (04465 and 04466)

• units 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5
• (Level 3) unit 6

Level 3 Certificate/Diploma qualifications (04468, 04469 and 04470)

• units 1, 2, 3 and 4, 36 and 38.

Where some evidence still needs to be generated then alternative methods should be considered, such as:

• Witness testimonies or professional discussion as an alternative to gathering further written evidence from candidates.
• Cross-referencing to previous achievement in other units.

Alternative forms of evidence must meet the assessment requirements and criteria and this needs to be clearly referenced. Please refer to the section ‘Guidance on adapted methods and forms of evidence’.

Permissible adaptations - Competence requirements

Valid and reliable evidence of candidate competence is required for units with competence based assessment criteria. Assessor observation should continue to be the primary source of evidence wherever possible in order to support clear judgements of competency.

Measures for social/physical distancing could make completion of units which require working alongside other people and using certain types of equipment more challenging.  Technology can support the assessment process, through remote working, for example.  Centres and candidates must give consideration to Safeguarding and the General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR) and get consent from all relevant parties when using technology to support any part of the assessment process that is taking place remotely.  Secure technologies and not social media must be used.

Simulation is only permissible when stated in the unit assessment methodology which follows the list of Learning Outcomes and Assessment Criteria. Evidence such as witness statements, professional discussions and observations should be used to support simulated activity. As with other activity using video-meeting technologies, digital recordings of simulations only need to be made where they are necessary for the centre assessor to use for their observation.

Alternative forms of evidence must meet the assessment requirements and criteria and this needs to be clearly referenced. Please refer to the section ‘Guidance on adapted methods and forms of evidence’.

Ultimately, the Internal Quality Assurer at the centre must take into consideration adaptions used to ensure to validity, authenticity, currency, reliability and sufficiency of evidence overall.

Level 2 Certificate qualifications (04465 and 04466)

The following units are competence based and linked to a person’s ability to competently perform a range of tasks connected with their work. They must be assessed in the workplace and must include direct observation (which may be done remotely, and can be supported/supplemented as detailed):

Units 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 14, 15, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 27 and 39.

Level 3 Certificate qualifications (04467, 04468 and 04470)

The following units are competence based and linked to a person’s ability to competently perform a range of tasks connected with their work. They must be assessed in the workplace and must include direct observation (which may be done remotely, and can be supported/supplemented as detailed):

Units 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 37, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 52 and 53 

Guidance on adapted methods and forms of evidence

Video-meeting technologies when carrying out assessment of individuals and teaching practice:

• If learners are receiving teaching support at school/a school environment or at home using online teaching, the centre and candidate can, with the permission of all relevant parties (the school, parents, the individual), agree to conduct teaching/support practice using secure video-meeting facilities (not social media). Resources/materials can be emailed to the school/learner/parents.

Video-meeting or audio-only technologies to observe assessments of individuals and teaching practice taking place:

• Providing all relevant parties agree, the centre assessor could observe the candidate carry out assessments and teaching/support practice remotely in real time by joining the video-meeting conference. Alternatively, provided all relevant parties agree, the candidate could record themselves and upload the recorded evidence to be assessed at a later time.
• Audio-only meetings or recordings are allowed if using video-technologies is not feasible as long as both OCR candidate and the individual learner being supported/taught are clearly audible.
• Recording(s) must be sent securely to the tutor for evaluation along with the relevant lesson plans and evaluations.

Professional discussion and witness testimony:

• When used as an alternative to an observed practical activity, it needs to be backed up, where possible, with authenticated candidate-generated work outputs/products that clearly indicate what the candidate is able to do to meet the assessment criteria.
• When used as an alternative to gathering further written evidence from candidates, they can refer back to an event or activity retrospectively as long as the event took place during the candidate’s registration period. It still must meet the assessment requirements.
• Witness testimonies must be individual, cannot be generic statements used for two or more candidates and must reflect what was actually observed.
• Professional discussion can be used to confirm product evidence and skills-based evidence to test the candidate’s competence/understanding. Where written evidence is weak then a professional discussion can be used to try and draw out further evidence from the candidate. 
• Witness testimonies and discussions with candidates to capture evidence of their knowledge/understanding can be digitally recorded. (Audio-only recordings are suitable.)

Cross-referencing to other units

• Gaps in evidence can be filled by cross-referencing to previous relevant achievement in other units. It must be clear that the candidate still meets the assessment requirements of the unit.
• In many cases where some observation has taken place, the nature of the activity observed is quite holistic, and it is likely that assessment requirements from more than one unit, or parts of units will have been seen being demonstrated. The centre assessor, alongside the candidate, could review previous observations to see if they demonstrate other assessment criteria from other units. If this is the case, then again this can be evidenced through either witness statements from the class teacher (in writing) or by a professional discussion between the candidate and the assessor.

 Authenticated reflective accounts

• Authenticated reflective accounts are acceptable if the authentication is confirmed by a trained and knowledgeable individual who has no relationship with the candidate (that includes family members even if they provide work experience).
• These have to be signed by a responsible, objective individual and would benefit from being backed up with other evidence such as questions and answers.