How will the College determine student grades?
Tutors will determine grades based only on evidence that corresponds with the standard at which the student is performing, i.e. the knowledge, understanding and skills they can demonstrate across the content of the course they have been taught. Ofqual and the Awarding Organisations require tutors to record how the evidence was used to arrive at a fair and objective grade, which is free from bias. Tutors will produce an Assessment Record (TAG) for each subject qualification and this will be checked and validated by the Head of Centre.
The tutor will make judgements based on what each student has been taught and what they have been assessed on, as outlined in the section on grading in the
JCQ guidance for students, parents and carers. Your grade will be based on a combination of some or all of the following evidence:
- Qfqual guidance and guidance provided by the relevant awarding organisations.
- Assessment work used to determine TAGs (this documentation will be retained and made available for the purposes of external quality checks and appeals).
- Student work produced in response to assessment materials provided by the awarding organisation(s), which will include groups of questions, past papers or similar materials such as practice or sample papers
- Non-exam assessment work (often referred to as coursework), which may be used even if this has not been fully completed.
- Student work produced in centre-devised tasks which reflect the specification follows the same format as awarding organisation materials and has been marked in a way that reflects awarding organisation mark schemes.
- Substantial class or homework may be used, as appropriate (including work that took place during remote learning).
- Internal tests taken by students.
- Mock exams taken over the course of study.
- Records of a student’s capability and performance over the course of study in performance-based subjects such as music and Sport Tutors
- Any Exam Access Arrangements you would have received had your exams taken place. (If these weren't in place this will be considered in the grading process and will be recorded).
** The above is general information but each course may differ, therefore the Course Coordinator will provide each student with a specific list of the assessments that will be used within their course (This will be provided electronically on Google Classroom).
Where students have been disadvantaged due to Covid 19 will tutors consider any additional assessments to give students full opportunity to achieve?
Tutors may use additional assessment materials to give students the opportunity to show what they know, understand or can do in an area of content that has been taught but not yet assessed. They may also use additional assessment materials to give students an opportunity to show improvement, for example, to validate or replace an existing piece of evidence. They will combine and/or remove elements of questions where, for example, a multi-part question includes a part that focuses on an element of the specification that hasn’t been taught. Finally, they will consider the depth and breadth of knowledge, understanding and skills assessed within individual assessments.
Will tutors let students know what grades they can expect?
Whilst tutors are able to discuss individual pieces of work and how well students may have done, they are NOT allowed to give any indication of the student's final grade. This is because the awarding organisation will go through a standardisation and verification process and may amend the student work up or down accordingly. Please do not ask tutors to discuss this, as they are not able to predict the outcome.
When can students expect their results?
Results will be provided by the Awarding organisations after they have completed their verification of the work and associated grades. The results are expected on 10th August for L3/AS and 12th August L2/GCSE. The results will be emailed to your College account from 8:30am on these dates, so please keep your College account details to hand.
Thank you to all our students for the hard work and resilience you have shown in these difficult times and we wish you all the best with your well-deserved qualification award.
