Business and Administration Level 4 Diploma (10337): Centre guidance on adaptations for 2021/22

We have updated this guidance document following the publication of the outcomes of the Department for Education and Ofqual’s joint consultation on the arrangements for assessment and awarding of VTQs in 2021/22.

The Government’s policy position is that for all VTQs, assessment should go ahead.  All content should be taught, as far as is feasible, so that candidates are as well-prepared as possible for progression to the next stage of their education, training or employment. Given the disruption to learners’ education that will be carried over into 2021 to 2022, to support education recovery it may be necessary and appropriate for adaptations to be made to assessments to free up time to focus on catch up and teaching the remaining qualification content. Where the assessment is unable to proceed, in their normal or adapted form, some candidates may be delayed in receiving a result.

The regulatory framework put in place by Ofqual through the VCRF is flexible and allows, but does not require, assessments to be adapted.

Our Business and Administration qualifications assess occupational/professional competency. We hope that you and your candidates are able to progress with assessment as usual this year but we are keeping in place the adaptations set out below in case ongoing disruption caused by the pandemic means you need to use them. This centre guidance is to support you and your candidates to complete assessment, while following public health guidance.

Equalities and Objectivity

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

For students 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 students, please contact the OCR Special Requirements Team on srteam@ocr.org.uk.

Professional discussions must be fair and evidence-based to reflect what the student 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 student’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 provided teacher assessed grades for students taking GCSEs, A levels and other performance tables qualifications.  The section ‘Being aware of unconscious effects on objectivity’ is applicable to centre assessment in general.

Permitted adaptations in 2021/22

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. 

Normally, students evidence the application of knowledge in their own working environment (e.g. an analysis of their employer’s organisational procedures) to produce written work supported with the real work context and centres use sufficient levels of supervision to authenticate the work of the student.

Students who have been unable to complete their assessment due to disruption caused by the pandemic are permitted to:

• Use professional discussion as an alternative to gathering further written evidence from students

These adaptations are in place for the 2021/22 academic year.  We encourage you to complete the assessment and submission process at the earliest opportunity.

If for any reason you cannot adapt the assessments in the ways that have been described below whilst ensuring the required level of supervision and checks to authenticate the evidence that is being produced, the assessments will have to be rescheduled for a time when it is possible to continue with them as normal.

Permissible adaptations

It should be possible to generate knowledge-based evidence in the normal way. If it is not possible, alternative methods should be considered, such as:

• professional discussion as an alternative to gathering further written evidence from learners. Professional discussions should be backed up, where possible, with other authenticated student-generated evidence or reports. Where written evidence is weak then a professional discussion can be used to try and draw out further evidence from the student.  Professional discussions with OCR students to capture evidence of their knowledge/understanding can be digitally recorded. (Audio-only recordings are suitable.) 
• cross-referencing to previous achievement in other units and/or other qualifications. If you are completing the Level 4 Business Administration apprenticeship, there might be evidence of knowledge and understanding from skills-based units or assessment criteria in the competence qualification, OCR Level 4 NVQ Diploma in Business Administration. 

Alternative forms of evidence must meet the assessment requirements and criteria and this needs to be clearly referenced.

Centres and students must give consideration to Safeguarding and the General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR) when using technology to support any part of the assessment process.

General guidance on producing evidence

Professional discussions, question and answer discussions must not permit the use of leading questions.

You must be assured that the student’s work is their own. Students must not submit work that includes evidence copied from other sources without proper attribution

Audio recordings must be clearly audible.  Recordings to be viewed at a later date must confirm the name of the student, date of activity.

Centres must give consideration to Safeguarding and the General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR) when using live video and audio evidence and when recording it.  Consent must be obtained from all parties who need to be part of the activity that is being viewed remotely or recorded.

Quality assurance

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

There are no changes to the sampling rules for these internal assessments.  We require you to submit the same amount of work for external moderation as you would under normal circumstances. 

These adaptations are in place for 2021/22.  We encourage you to complete the assessment and submission process at the earliest opportunity.

You must complete an ‘Adaption Declaration’ included within a 2021/22 cover sheet, that replaces the standard submission cover sheet when you submit candidate evidence and a copy of the Interchange claim. This 2021/22 cover sheet can be downloaded below. You will need to confirm that any adaptations to assessment are in line with the permitted adaptations for 2021/22 outlined here.

Completed assessments can be submitted to OCR in the normal way for external moderation.  We would strongly advise the use of electronic evidence during this period, guidance for which can be found in the centre handbook.

10337 submission cover sheet (2021/22)