Centre administrative procedures Applied General qualifications V1.1 January 2017
This document has been produced to assist exams officers and teachers with the administration of the Applied General qualifications.
It should be used in conjunction with the specification for the relevant qualification.
The administration of the specification, collection of entry information and the issue of results and certificates will be undertaken by AQA Education, Devas Street, Manchester, M15 6EX.
From summer 2017, entries for Applied General qualifications can be made via EDI or e-AQA.
Enquiries should be made using the contact details below:
Tel: 0800 197 7162 (+44 161 696 5995 outside the UK)
Email: eos@aqa.org.uk
AQA Education (AQA) is a registered charity (number 1073334) and a company limited by guarantee registered in England and Wales (number 3644723). Our registered address is AQA, Devas Street, Manchester M15 6EX.
Contents
1 How to become an approved centre/applying for centre approval 3 2 Entering learners 3 3 Dealing with Recognition of Prior Learning (RPL) 3 4 Dealing with potential malpractice or maladministration 4 5 Opening and deadline dates 4 6 Entry fees 4 7 Lost or destroyed work 4 8 Results 5 9 How to make claims for certificates 5 10 Post-results services 5 11 How to appeal 6 12 Retention of learner work and assessment/IQA records 6
AQA Education (AQA) is a registered charity (number 1073334) and a company limited by guarantee registered in 2 of 6 England and Wales (number 3644723). Our registered address is AQA, Devas Street, Manchester M15 6EX.
Full details of all of the administration arrangements relating to this qualification can be found in the specification.
1 How to become an approved centre/applying for centre approval
To become an approved assessment centre for Applied General qualifications, you must apply for approval from AQA. Centres can be schools, professional institutions, colleges of further or higher education, private companies or any other organisation, which has the infrastructure in place to support the delivery, assessment and internal quality assurance of the qualifications.
If you are a new school/college or are new to AQA but are an existing JCQ awarding organisation centre, visit the AQA website http://www.aqa.org.uk/exams-administration/exams-office- support/become-an-aqa-centre and follow the instructions on how to become an AQA centre.
If you are an existing Applied A-level centre (doing Applied A-level Business/Science) then contact us on 0800 197 7162 or email [email protected] for further details on how you can transfer your approval across to the new Applied General qualifications.
2 Entering learners
Once you have received confirmation of your approved centre status for Applied General qualifications you can make entries via EDI or e-AQA.
Please see Information for Candidates – Privacy Notice, Appendix A within JCQ General Regulations for Approved Centres for further details of how this information will be used.
You are not required to register students against a qualification at the start of a learning programme. Applied General qualifications have two assessment sessions in January and June of each year, and, in advance of these sessions, you are required to register students for the units the students wish to take at each of the relevant assessment sessions. If your students are not taking part in a session you do not need to register them.
3 Dealing with Recognition of Prior Learning (RPL)
On occasion, students may bring forward evidence of prior experience, learning or qualifications which can be recognised towards our qualifications. This evidence can be categorised in the following ways:
Recognition of prior learning (RPL) – experience gained by the student through work or training activities for which the student does not have formal certification
Exemptions – units or qualifications held by the student which have been deemed to be equivalent to units within the qualification.
You must review any prior learning or achievements brought forward by the student to determine their suitability as evidence. These should then be discussed with AQA before any decision is made.
The specification will identify the RPL and exemptions that are appropriate for each qualification.
AQA Education (AQA) is a registered charity (number 1073334) and a company limited by guarantee registered in 3 of 6 England and Wales (number 3644723). Our registered address is AQA, Devas Street, Manchester M15 6EX.
4 Dealing with potential malpractice or maladministration
To report an instance of malpractice or maladministration you are advised to refer to the JCQ document General and Vocational Qualifications Suspected malpractice in examinations and assessment in the first instance.
If an individual has information concerning malpractice, they can contact our Irregularities team:
Irregularities, AQA Education, Devas Street, Manchester, M15 6EX. Email: [email protected] Call: 0161 958 3736
Please provide as much information as possible.
5 Opening and deadline dates
Schools/colleges can withdraw/amend entries up to the relevant deadline only. If the deadline for withdrawal of/amendment to entries has passed, you must contact us for further advice.
Don’t miss the deadlines, which you can find on our dedicated web page: http://www.aqa.org.uk/exams-administration/entries
Late entry and very late entry for exams will be charged at the published rate.
6 Entry fees
The entry fees for the exams will be notified to schools/colleges in the autumn term in the ‘Entry Fees and Other Charges’ booklet. Details of all AQA fees can be found on our website http://www.aqa.org.uk/exams-administration/entries/entry-fees
7 Lost or destroyed work
In a situation where a student’s evidence is lost or goes missing, and is not therefore available for external quality assurance and/or marking, you must report this to us as soon as possible.
You may be asked to provide copies of all relevant assessment and internal standardisation records, copies of any evidence that may have been retained by the student (eg copies held electronically) and details of the circumstances of the loss for consideration by the moderator/assessor at the next appropriate assessment session.
Depending on the available evidence, the moderator/assessor may then be asked to review these records and any evidence gathered to determine whether, in light of a full consideration of your assessment and internal standardisation processes, a certificate can be awarded.
We retain the right to ask learners to submit a new assignment task where sufficient evidence of the original assessment cannot be provided.
AQA Education (AQA) is a registered charity (number 1073334) and a company limited by guarantee registered in 4 of 6 England and Wales (number 3644723). Our registered address is AQA, Devas Street, Manchester M15 6EX.
Applications for special consideration in respect of lost/damaged work must be made via JCQ/LCW Form 15.
Exams officers can request special consideration after the registration deadline provided that the school/college is:
• responsible for the loss • able to verify that the work was completed and that the student was monitored while doing the work.
The student should reproduce as much of their missing work as possible. Work that is lost as a consequence of negligence on the part of the student is not eligible for special consideration.
8 Results
From summer 2017, results will be published via EDI and A2C (make sure you click ‘Send/Receive’ to force A2C to check for files) and also on ‘e-documents’ on e-AQA, our secure extranet. You will find dates and key deadlines on our dedicated web page: http://www.aqa.org.uk/exams-administration/results-days
9 How to make claims for certificates
You can claim certificates for learners when they have achieved the required combination of units for an award. Please refer to Section 15 (Business) and Section 16 (Science) of your specification for information on grading.
Claiming for a Certificate qualification eg, at the end of year 12, does not mean that students cannot go on to undertake the Extended Certificate qualification eg, in year 13. Equally, you are not required to claim the Certificate, even if students have achieved the required units, where those students are embarked on the Extended Certificate.
Where a student does not complete a whole award, unit certification is available. Please contact [email protected] for further advice.
10 Post-results services
If you're unhappy about an exam result, you can ask us for a clerical check or review of marking (‘enquiries about results’), or we can send you the marked paper (‘access to scripts’).
You’ll find more information, including fees on our website http://www.aqa.org.uk/exams- administration/results-days/post-results.
All enquiries about moderated results should be made to us, in the first instance and in line with AQA’s moderation review service: http://www.aqa.org.uk/exams-administration/results-days/post- results/moderation-review.
AQA Education (AQA) is a registered charity (number 1073334) and a company limited by guarantee registered in 5 of 6 England and Wales (number 3644723). Our registered address is AQA, Devas Street, Manchester M15 6EX.
11 How to appeal
An appeal can be made in the following circumstances:
• against an examination/external assignment result where an EAR has been undertaken and you are still not satisfied with the outcome.
• against an internal assessment/IQA decision made by yourselves where your own appeals procedure has been followed to its conclusion and the learner is not satisfied with the outcome.
In this case your own appeals procedure must be followed to its conclusion before referring the matter to us.
• against a decision made by an AQA appointed external moderator in the areas of:
o learners’ moderated results o identification of a school/college sanction(s) in relation to learners’ results
• against an evaluation decision for centre approval
• against an action or sanction imposed as a result of an investigation of malpractice.
You are advised to refer to the JCQ Appeals Booklet and visit our web page for further details on how to appeal www.aqa.org.uk/exams-administration/about-results/post-results/appeals
12 Retention of student work and assessment/IQA records
You must retain copies of assessment and IQA records for a period of three years from the date the student’s certificate was claimed from us.
For units that are assessed and internally quality assured by yourselves, samples of student work must be retained and monitored by you to ensure that standards are maintained over time. EQA’s will also request samples of learner work at each visit. You may find it useful to use these as the basis for standardisation activities carried out by IQAs with their teams of assessors.
You should remember that student work is the property of the individual student, therefore assessor and IQA records should be kept separately by the school or college.
In addition, any work you retain should be copies of learner evidence, rather than originals and must include the express permission of the user to allow their use for standardisation activities.
AQA Education (AQA) is a registered charity (number 1073334) and a company limited by guarantee registered in 6 of 6 England and Wales (number 3644723). Our registered address is AQA, Devas Street, Manchester M15 6EX.