Exams officers
Here at NCFE, we know how vital exams officers are. Without you, it would be impossible to run and administer our exams successfully, so we work hard to make it easy for you to work with us.
On this page you’ll find all the key information to support you in your role, including timetables, a key dates calendar and FAQs, as well as monthly updates to ensure you’re kept up to date with any changes, events and training opportunities.
Your monthly update (November 2024)
Below you’ll find your monthly update for November 2024, including key upcoming dates for your diary for reasonable adjustments, post-results and assessment and delivery support, and more.
VTQ timely delivery of results
- We recently shared our arrangements to ensure the timely delivery of vocational technical qualifications (VTQ) results for learners in 2024-25. Take a look at our webpage to find out everything you need to know about our two term-time checkpoints this academic year, the qualifications in scope of these arrangements, information we need from you and when, and the consequences of failure to meet deadlines for information requests.
Key dates and timetables
Register your learners
Please ensure to register your learners within 90 days of their start date to avoid late registration fees, and add your learners’ correct end dates at the point of registration.
External Quality Assurance (EQA) reviews
From summer 2025 onwards, we’re bringing forward the completion date for EQA reviews to 30 June. To find out more about this or if you have any queries, please contact [email protected]. Please ensure that you get your EQA review booked in as soon as possible.
Updated assessment timetable for 2024-25
We’ve updated our assessment timetable for all CACHE and V Cert qualifications with assessments in 2024-25 and 2025-26. Click here to view the timetable and supporting documentation.
Important reminders
- Join our new WhatsApp channel to keep up to date with key deadlines and reminders for our qualifications.
- We’ve also updated our Regulations for the Conduct of External Assessments for 2024-25. View all the updates and access the latest version of the regulations
- If any contact details have changed at your centre such as programme contact, head of centre, finance or exams contact, it’s important to let us know. It’s quick and easy to notify us by filling in this form which will allow us to continue communicating important updates to the correct individuals.
T Levels
- View our latest T Level communications.
V Certs
- Our standardisation pack is also now available on the Portal, and you must complete the relevant training by 28 February 2025. These training materials support your delivery teams by looking in more detail at the NEA tutor guidance document and marking bands. These will support you to feel confident that you’re marking consistently and are prepared in advance for the 2024-25 assessment window.
- Complete our administration training alongside the standardisation pack materials by 28 February 2025.
- View our V Cert service messages area for more information.
Functional Skills
- Take a look at our schedule for introducing new Functional Skills assessment papers.
- Look at the latest information on Functional Skills bookings over the festive break, including paper-based and online assessments.
- To support your planning, view our schedule for introducing new assessments into the live assessment paper bank for the remainder of the 2025 session, as during these periods our usual 6 working day turnaround will be paused
- Entry Level maths vocabulary lists for assessors are now available upon booking for all assessments. These will help to help prepare your learners for the vocabulary associated with the contexts within the assessments. Find out more.
- View the latest practice papers for Functional Skills English. Each paper has been carefully chosen by our Assessment team to provide an authentic assessment experience. Find out more.
Upcoming events
Delivery support events
Sign up to delivery support events for V Certs from our Provider Development team, which provide opportunities for networking, and explore topics such as preparing to teach and preparing to assess.
Functional Skills
Sign up for our November maths, English and Digital Skills CPD events, including angles and coordinates, effective communication skills and being safe and responsible online. You can also register for our Digital Functional Skills and Essential Digital Skills training events and drop-in clinics to answer any queries and support your onboarding.
Assessor and Internal Quality Assurance (IQA) training
We’ve got several upcoming Assessor and IQA training events, which provide a great opportunity to meet like-minded assessment and IQA professionals. Explore these to expand your knowledge and understanding of IQA, assessment, and our qualifications. Book onto our Assessor or IQA events today.
NCFE’s Professional Development Week
Our second NCFE Professional Development Week took place in July with recap sessions available here. Save the date for our third upcoming Professional Development Week - from 16-20 December - packed with useful sessions for your personal development.
Bite-size videos to support you
We’re creating a series of bite-size videos to support exams colleagues, some of which are already available on our YouTube channel. These detail some common themes or areas of difficulty and will also provide updates about our Portal User Guide.
Supporting administration staff
If you or your colleagues require support or guidance on using the Portal, please contact [email protected]. One of our team will help to signpost you to any guidance or can provide a demonstration.
You can find the upcoming post results deadlines for assessments for our CACHE and T Level qualifications in the Key Dates Schedule.
We understand that there are times when a student or provider feels that a result is at variance with their reasonable expectations. Therefore, there is a range of post-results options available to providers to support you and your students.
Requests for reviews of marking or access to scripts can be submitted by the provider on behalf of the student (with their consent), however before doing so, please ensure you’re familiar with our Enquiries about Results and Assessment Decisions Policy.
More information on post-results services can be found here.
Visit our assessment support page where you'll find everything you need to support you with assessment, including policies, forms and guidance on online assessment, remote invigilation, assessment and results queries, appeals, certificates, special considerations, access arrangements and reasonable adjustments, and much more.
Visit our delivery support page where we have over 1000 informative and engaging learning resources. Here, you'll find all you need to deliver our qualifications and support your learners.
View our Qualifications for Specific Delivery (QSID) document which provides qualification-specific instructions relating to the administration of external assessments for NCFE qualifications.
The Exams Office, in conjunction with their training partner Exams Training, offers a range of face-to-face training events delivered by industry experts, supported by high quality resources and held at 4/5-star venues across England. Events are available for:
- Exams officers
- Senior leaders/line managers
- Invigilators.
Learn more about how you can keep up to date with your training
If you require a reasonable adjustment submission and/or paper modification, please ensure they’re booked before the below deadlines:
- Reasonable adjustments (PDF requests, language modifiers and speech recognition): prior to the booking cut-off date
- Paper modifications (braille): 30 working days before the assessment
- Paper modifications (enlarged paper or coloured paper): 15 working days before the assessment
- Reasonable adjustments (practical assistant): one day prior to the assessment
- All other reasonable adjustments: up to the assessment date.
For more information on reasonable adjustments and how to submit an application, visit this page.
You can find the upcoming post results deadlines for assessments for our CACHE and T Level qualifications in the Key Dates Schedule.
