Regulating post-16 VTQs at L2 and L3

Moderation of centre-marked assessments

Where awarding organisations permit centres to mark assessments, there need to be appropriate controls in place for awarding organisations to ensure marking is accurate and consistent. Ofqual requires awarding organisations to have arrangements in place known as Centre Assessment Standards Scrutiny (CASS) to oversee centre-marking.

Awarding organisations can determine their own approach under these requirements, for example deciding the types of checks they do, how often these occur, and when these happen, based on the design of their qualification. Such approaches are used in many vocational and technical qualifications and typically involve awarding organisations periodically sampling and checking school or college marking. Awarding organisations consider whether any adjustments are needed, and depending on how the qualification is delivered, may do this before or after results are issued. This means that not all components or all students are necessarily available to be sampled from each year, as long as all are sampled over a period of time.

We also specify a particular form of CASS, known as Moderation. Moderation is defined in Ofqual’s rules and is how school or college marking of centre-marked assessment in GCSEs, AS and A Levels, Key Stage 4 Technical Awards and Technical Qualifications within T Levels is checked. Moderation provides a higher level of awarding organisation control, as it requires checks to be completed across all components, and adjustments made, before results are issued.

Moderation in qualifications such as GCSEs and A Levels typically involves an awarding organisation sampling centre marking, and then where necessary, making adjustments to all of a centre’s marking, based on its review of the sample. Ofqual does not specify the exact process to be used for Moderation though, so approaches other than those used in the qualifications above may also be capable of meeting this requirement.

Proposal

Where an awarding organisation allows schools or colleges to mark assessments in a V Level, we consider it important that this marking from across all components is checked, and where necessary adjusted, ahead of results being issued. We propose therefore that centre-marked assessments in V Levels should be subject to Moderation as defined in Ofqual’s regulatory framework, and to add V Levels to the List of assessments that must be Moderated under General Condition H2.3(a)(i).

We recognise that V Levels will have a higher proportion of centre-marked assessment, and the nature of those assessments may lead to different types of evidence being produced to that produced in other qualifications where Moderation is used. Our rules do not specify a particular approach, and awarding organisations may make adjustments in different ways and may take different approaches to the sampling and checking of the results so long as they meet the requirements of checks and necessary adjustments taking place before results are issued.