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 (April 2024)
Below you’ll find your monthly update for April 2024, including key upcoming dates for your diary for reasonable adjustments, post-results and assessment and delivery support, and more.
Important reminders
VTQ results – second term-time checkpoint opening
on 15 April
Thank you for submitting your information to us for the first VTQ term-time checkpoint. The second checkpoint opens on 15 April and the deadline for completion will be 3 May. Find out more.
You can also access Ofqual’s VTQ information hub for further support
Find out moreHave your say – V Certs
To continue to improve our support package, we need your feedback on our tutor guidance for the NCFE Level 1/2 Technical Awards. Have your say in our short survey before 12 April.
Model 5 (NEW) V Cert assessment support
We wanted to remind you of some key dates and guidance for our Level 1/2 Technical Awards.
Tuesday 30 April is the deadline for:
- registering learners for both the NEA (non-examined assessment) and external assessment (EA), and deciding whether you’d like to sit the EA online or paper-based
- the submission of learner marks for the NEA.
Friday 3 May (23:59pm) is the deadline for:
- uploading evidence for all learners of cohorts with 15 or less.
- uploading evidence for all learners on your sampling plan for the NEA (if you have a cohort of 16 or more learners).
Visit our V Cert assessment support webpage for more information on
everything we have in place to support you and your learners throughout V Cert assessments. You can also take a look at our V Cert FAQs.
Important information on Model 4 V Cert internal assessments
We wanted to share information about booking your learners onto the Model 4 V Certs non-examined assessment, withdrawing learners and upcoming submission dates. Please note that Model 4 V Certs require an external quality assurance review (Model 5 V Certs don’t require EQA reviews). Find out more.
Upcoming events
Education and Early Years teaching assistant forum events
Our free TA forum events offer interactive CPD opportunities, to help teaching assistants to build on their existing knowledge and skills in supporting children and young people within teaching and learning environments. Sign up for the next event on Thursday 2 May which will focus on supporting literacy skills.
Sign your learners up for our first Health student conference
Taking place on 25 June from 10am-12pm, our first Health student conference will focus on ‘Digital Healthcare Revolution: Transforming Healthcare with Technology’. Your students will delve into the dynamic realm of technology in healthcare, with a special emphasis on the healthcare landscape, and how healthcare professionals are using technology to enhance patient outcomes. Sign up now.
What you need to know for the T Level autumn assessment series
To help you prepare for your students sitting the core exams in the autumn assessment series, we're sharing some useful reminders to help ensure these assessments go smoothly, including how to disable AI tools during assessments. Find out more.
Bite-size videos to support you
We’ll be creating a series of bite-size videos, some of which are already available on our YouTube channel, detailing some of the common themes or areas of difficulty, and will also provide updates to our Portal User Guide, accordingly.
Supporting administration staff
In acknowledgement of the high turnaround of centre staff dealing with NCFE’s administrative assessment processes, we would request that any centre with new or inexperienced staff, who may require support in enacting any of our Portal-related activities, contact [email protected], where one of the team will be glad to help signpost, integrate or demonstrate these processes directly.
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.
