Please see below an update on the position regarding this year’s qualifications
A change in the process for assessing technical and vocational qualifications was announced on 13 January 2021, as the Department for Education decided that exams for Vocational and Technical Qualifications (VTQs) will not take place in February or March this year. This means that any scheduled external assessments for BTEC Level 2 Tech Awards, Firsts, Technical and Level 3 Nationals, as well as qualifications for other Awarding Organisations in those months will now not go ahead.
We are now awaiting information from our awarding organisations with instructions on how to ensure our students are still able to be assessed for the work they are doing, and how those assessments can contribute to their qualification. Yesterday also saw the UK Education Secretary, Gavin Williamson, instruct Ofqual to start working with Awarding Organisations and education professionals on alternative arrangements for VTQ assessments due to take place in Spring and Summer 2021.
Locally, this means that it is now clear we will need to adapt the way we assess our students for the remainder of this academic year. The consultation carried out by Ofqual is likely to be in the next two weeks (so completed end Jan), after which we will expect clear guidance on how these assessment processes will work for Bailiwick students. At that stage we will work to ensure that our students, parents, employers and other stakeholders are fully informed about what this means for the qualifications we teach, and we will ensure that our students are assessed for all their work and effort and that they are able to make progress to achieve their qualifications and take their next steps.
