Exams officers

Your monthly update (December 2024)

Below you’ll find your monthly update for December 2024, including key upcoming dates for your diary for reasonable adjustments, post-results and assessment and delivery support, and more.

NCFE’s Professional Development Week

Our Professional Development Week is back from 16-20 December to support teachers, assessors, senior leaders and support staff with their teaching and learning, improving confidence and enhancing learner engagement. Register for the sessions now.

VTQ first term-time checkpoint now open

Following our communication last month to confirm arrangements to ensure the timely delivery of vocational technical qualifications (VTQ) results for learners in 2024-25, we wanted to let you know that the first term-time checkpoint is now open. If you deliver any of the qualifications in scope of this year’s arrangements, your centre’s action is required to ensure this checkpoint is completed by Friday 31 January. Visit our timely delivery of VTQ results webpage for more information on the actions you need to take and where to find support.

Key dates and timetables

Christmas closing hours

We’ll be closing for the Christmas break from 4:30pm on Monday 23 December 2024 until 8:30am on Thursday 2 January 2025. This means our customer support services (by email, phone and web chat) will be unavailable during this time – but you’ll still be able to access our website and our Portal, as usual.

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

• Read our new top tips for preventing malpractice document and familiarise yourself with the different actions you can take.
• 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

• 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
• 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 upcoming January maths, English and Digital Skills CPD events, including ‘CPD maths: conquering confidence and confusion’ and ‘CPD English: magic of mindfulness and wonders of wellbeing’.

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.

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.