Following the announcement on 29 September from DfE and Ofqual and our communications to all centres throughout the autumn term, we want to remind centres that we are returning to pre-pandemic arrangements for all our Cambridge Nationals (legacy qualifications) and Cambridge Technicals assessment taking place during this academic year (2022/23).
KEY POINTS
- You cannot use unit level adaptations for assessment to be taken in this academic year (2022/23)
- There is no reduction in assessment for units due to be assessed this academic year (2022/23)
- We will still need to collect details on who used reduction in assessment last academic year (2021/22) and will ask you to provide data.
- We will still moderate work that used unit level adaptations (‘adapted work’) provided the work was completed in the last academic year (2021/22).
What happens next and when?
We will be in contact with your Head of Centre in January 2023 to ask them to confirm that you are not using any of the adaptations, including reduction in assessment of moderated units, for assessment due to be taken in 2022/23. Your students' results would be at risk if you use adaptations that are not available this academic year.
We will then ask your centre to confirm the details of any students certificating this summer who used reduction in assessment last academic year (2021/22).
- For Cambridge Nationals students certificating in June 2023: The window to submit candidate details will be from 30 January to 6 March 2023. More details on the process for June can be found in the exams officers area.
- For Cambridge Technicals students certificating in summer 2023: The window to submit candidate details will be from 20 March to 28 April 2023. More details on the process will be available shortly.
If you need any further information about these arrangements, please don’t hesitate to contact us at support@ocr.org.uk or 01223 555998.
Frequently asked questions (FAQs)
What about students who had adaptations in 2021/2022 academic year but are due to certificate in summer 2023?
- We will still need to collect details on students who used reduction in assessment last year – and will ask you to provide your data
- We will still moderate work that used unit level adaptations (‘adapted work’) provided the work was completed last academic year 2021/2022.
What were the ‘unit-level adaptations’ available in 2021/22?
This was not the same adaptation as reduction in assessment.
This was guidance put in place to help schools and colleges continue with assessment, while dealing with public health restrictions. The unit-level adaptations were published in the ‘changes for 2022’ section on each qualification page.
If you used unit-level adaptations in 2021/22 and are submitting the work this year, we will still moderate it.
I have student who wants to improve the grade for a unit completed last year using unit level adaptations, what do we do?
For those students, you will need to replace the adapted work with unadapted work. If you can’t do that you need to tell us why not. We will need to consider if there has been time (since we announced adaptations have been removed) to replace the adapted work and how long it will take to replace the work.
If the only adaption used was permission to complete work at home, as you were still required to authenticate this work, you do not need to replace the work.
In 2021/22 we changed the controls for moderated unit R013 to allow the same assignment to be submitted in the January and June 2021 series. This adaptation has been removed. If your students are resubmitting R013 in January or June 2023, it must be on the assignment valid for the series as per usual arrangements. The Progress Cyber Ltd. assignment from 2021/22 cannot be used this year.
Reduction in assessment was not available for Information Technologies.
We submitted a declaration last year for reduction in assessment, why do we need to do so again?
The declaration last year asked different questions. The declaration this year will be to confirm that you have not used any adaptations for assessments taken this year (2022/23).
What about students who have missed teaching and learning in this academic year?
We are not continuing with adaptations. Ofqual guidance is:
“a range of adaptations were permitted in academic year 2021 to 2022. Given that public health restrictions are no longer in place, these adaptations are no longer necessary for the academic year 2022 to 2023 onwards.”
Reduction in assessment from 2021/22 FAQs
We had a student join us this year, they were not completing the qualification at their old centre. Can they use reduction in assessment?
No. Reduction in assessment was only available for units that were planned to be assessed in 2021/22. The student was not due to take the assessment in the qualifying period (academic year 2021/22) so the assessment cannot be reduced.
We submitted a unit for moderation during 2021/22 that the student did not perform as well as expected in. Can we instead use this as our reduced assessment unit from 2021/22?
No.
We certificated a student in 2021/22 using reduction in assessment. If the student resubmits a supporting unit this academic year, will you recalculate the assessed grade for the reduced unit?
No. The assessed grade given in 2021/22 (when first certificating) will still be available to the student to use towards the new qualification result.
When and how do we confirm the details of any students certificating this year who used reduction in assessment last academic year?
- For Cambridge Nationals you do this in the series of certification via Interchange
- For Cambridge Technicals we'll provide an opportunity for you to add any students to Interchange who were missed in your original submission. This will be from March 2023.
Please see our article 'Cambridge Nationals and Cambridge Technicals Reduction in Assessment used in 2021/22: Students certificating in 2022/23' for more details.
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