Awarding of Vocational Technical and Other qualifications in summer 2021

Published: Thursday 25 Mar 2021

Ofqual has published the decisions for the regulatory arrangements for the awarding of vocational and technical and other general qualifications in 2020-2021.

Summary of these decisions

The arrangements in place allow us to mirror the approaches for GCSEs, AS and A-levels, in most cases. This means you’ll need to generate a grade, for each learner, for each subject. Where assessment will continue, eg for Functional Skills, separate arrangements will be put in place, we’re still working on this and hope to be in touch with more details soon.

You’ll be asked to use evidence and make judgements on grades, objectively, in the same way, noting that for some Vocational Technical and Other qualifications (VTQ’s), banked unit evidence will be an important part of your evidence base. You’ll need to make sure that learners have studied sufficient content to form the basis of a grade, as is required by the General Qualifications Alternative Awarding Framework.

Grade submission, quality assurance and appeals processes will be the same as for GCSEs, AS and A-levels - we won’t need you to work in different ways, across different qualifications.

Autumn series consultation

Ofqual is asking for views on autumn assessment opportunities for VTQ's. The consultation will be open until 7 April 2021.

As usual, we’ll be looking at these consultations in detail and responding ourselves.

Other guidance

Ofqual has also published new guidance:

• Information for heads of centre, heads of department and teachers on the submission of grades: summer 2021
• Guidance for centres on making judgements that will support awarding in 2021

See all updates