E-bulletins archive

Autumn assessment series 

T Levels autumn assessment series: what you need to know  

We wanted to remind you that we’ve updated our website with essential information about the upcoming T Level autumn assessment series, focusing on the core exams and employer set projects (ESP) that students will be completing this autumn. 

Please visit our autumn assessment series webpage for more details. 

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T Level core paper start times  

For the 2025-26 academic session and beyond, we’ve aligned to the Joint Council of Qualifications (JCQ) Instructions for Conducting Examinations (ICE) document. This means that there’s a single set of exam regulations for you and your colleagues to follow across all T Levels.  

As part of this, we wanted to highlight a point about start times, specifically assessments that have an afternoon start time, to help to avoid any confusion. 

As our Key Dates Schedule shows, the scheduled start time for T Level core assessments is 1:00pm. The ICE document states that standard afternoon start times are 1:30pm, but please note that the NCFE Key Dates Schedule takes precedent, and so these assessments should start at 1:00pm. 

Therefore, the potential window for beginning an afternoon T Level core assessment is 12:30pm to 1:30pm. This takes account of the scheduled start time of 1:00pm and the 30-minute flexibility either side. Unless an approved assessment variation or timetable clash is in place, T Level core assessments should start no later than 1:30pm.  

We’re working with JCQ to update the ICE to reflect this exception to the standard scheduled afternoon start time, in advance of the published 2026-27 version. The reason for the difference is the relative length of T Level core assessments. These are often 2 hours or longer, and starting at 1:00pm ensures that, accounting for possible reasonable adjustment extra-time requirements, students can complete their assessment within a suitable timeframe allowing for standard provider finish times. 

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Advanced assessment materials   

This document shows when advanced assessment materials will be available, as well as who can access them and when. Download the autumn 2025 document here. 

Please note that live assessment materials (hard copies or downloaded electronic PDF versions) will be available three working days before the start date of the assessment or assessment window.   

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Invigilation requirements for autumn series assessments  

We wanted to remind you of the options and requirements for completing T Level external assessments with NCFE.  

T Level core exam assessment options  

All T Level core exams are externally assessed. Students can complete these either on paper or online, but regardless of the assessment mode, the regulations under which they must be completed are the same.  

Supervision requirements  

All core exams must be invigilated. This is a critical control to ensure security of assessment and validity of results. You must ensure that you have sufficient suitable and trained invigilators, who are able to conduct T Level external assessments under the required conditions, allowing assessments to take place without student or provider malpractice or maladministration occurring.   

Details on the specific requirements for how to arrange invigilation can be found in the JCQ guidance for exams, and further detail on malpractice, including definitions, rights and responsibilities, and procedures that you must follow are in the JCQ guidance for malpractice. The most important documents for you to follow are:  

• Instructions for conducting examinations (ICE): this is the primary JCQ instruction for conducting exams, covering the actions required to ensure assessments are completed in a secure and consistent manner, protecting the integrity of assessments.   

• JCQ Suspected Malpractice: Policies and Procedures: this document outlines examples of potential malpractice and maladministration, and sets out the potential sanctions that may be applied where cases are proven.   

It’s your responsibility, as outlined in the NCFE Centre Agreement, to ensure you and your colleagues are familiar with all mandatory policies and requirements, and that you take all reasonable steps to comply with them. We monitor for signs of potential malpractice and maladministration, through unannounced NCFE assessment monitoring visits, JCQ Centre Inspection visits, examiner and moderator notifications, digital and data checks for things such as AI misuse. All concerns are investigated.   

The invigilator register (IR) is an essential piece of evidence to confirm student attendance and ensure compliance with regulatory requirements. Please upload a fully completed Invigilator Register to the NCFE portal along with all student evidence. 

If you have any questions or concerns, please contact our Customer Support team in the first instance. 

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Key dates and important actions 

Arrangements for the timely delivery of VTQ results and term-time checkpoint dates for 2025-26  

We’ve communicated arrangements with your heads of centres and exams contacts to ensure the timely delivery of vocational technical qualifications (VTQ) results for learners in 2025-26.   

If we’ve identified that your centre runs one or more of the qualifications in scope of the government’s measures for these arrangements, we’ll have sent this information to you directly.   

We’ve created a webpage with everything you need to know ahead of our term-time checkpoints this year, including:    

• qualifications in scope of these arrangements    

• key dates for our two term-time checkpoints and results   

• information we need from you    

• consequences of failure to meet deadlines for information requests    

• further support and FAQs.    

Visit our term-time checkpoints webpage 

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Late registration period is now open 

As a reminder, you needed to register your new cohort of students before Saturday 1 November to avoid late registration fees. For any registrations after this date, you’ll be charged a late registration fee (from Sunday 2 November until Tuesday 23 December) or a very late registration fee (from Wednesday 24 December until Friday 31 July), in line with our fees and pricing guide: 

• Late registration or registration amendment (£21) - Sunday 2 November until Tuesday 23 December 2025  

• Very late registration or registration amendment (£42.50) – Wednesday 24 December 2025 until Friday 31 July 2026 

After Friday 31 July 2026 you won’t be able to register students for the 2025-26 session.  Take a look at our T Level Portal User Guide for instructions on how to register students.   

 Please see our Key Dates Schedule for full details of key dates throughout the year. If you require any additional information, please contact our Assessment Delivery team via email at [email protected].   

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Moderation key dates 

Our moderation webpage shows a visual timeline covering both visiting and remote moderation.   

The T Level timeline documents are designed to provide you with a clear overview of key events for both visiting and remote moderation, along with guidance on where to access further support.  

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Summer 2026 - Occupational Specialism bookings for second-year T Level students  

Please remember that you need to book your second-year students onto their chosen Occupational Specialism (OS) for the summer 2026 assessment series by the dates below at the latest. These are the final deadlines for booking, and we encourage you to make bookings as soon as possible, rather than waiting until the cut-off date.  

This is particularly important for Generation 1 of the T Level Education and Early Years (603/5829/4), as timely bookings are required to ensure that a visiting moderator can be allocated.  

Please follow the booking instructions in the T Level Portal Guide. 

If any students are no longer completing the qualification or they are deferring until next session, please notify our Moderation team at [email protected].   

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Supporting your delivery 

New T Level qualification materials 

Grade standard exemplification materials (GSEMs) for the summer 2025 assessment series are now available on the T Level qualification pages on our website. The GSEMs are accessible via ‘support materials’ on each T Level qualification page.    

These documents contain student responses, alongside examiner/moderator commentary, to support providers and students to prepare for their occupational specialism (OS) assessments. Please note, GSEMs are only produced for OS assessments that had students sitting in summer 2025 and where appropriate exemplar work was available.  

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Training and events 

Standardisation training  

We’ve listened to your feedback, and standardisation training materials are now available directly on our website instead of on our Portal. We’ve made this change to make access to these materials quicker and easier for you.  

The materials are available to download from each T Level qualification page, by clicking on the ‘Support Materials’ tab and selecting  the provider standardisation drop down menu.. 

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Administration training  

Administration training materials are available on our moderation page to support your teams in preparing for the 2025-26 assessment window.  

The training consists of a series of short videos covering essential processes, including:  

• how to access assessment materials 

• how to submit provider marks for moderation 

• how to view students selected for moderation and upload evidence. 

We recommend all colleagues involved in assessment administration view these videos regularly to ensure they remain confident and up to date with moderation requirements.  

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Keep your contact details up to date  

To ensure we can reach the right colleagues with important updates, please notify us of any staff changes by using our online form.  

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Key dates and important actions 

Remember to register your new students before Saturday 1 November  

You need to register your new cohort of students before Saturday 1 November. For any registrations after this date, you’ll be charged a late registration fee (from Sunday 2 November until Tuesday 23 December) or a very late registration fee (from Wednesday 24 December until Friday 31 July), in line with our fees and pricing guide.  

Please see below registration fees from 1 August 2025: 

• T Level Technical Qualification in Education and Early Years - £375.00 

• T Level Technical Qualification in Health - £131.50 

• T Level Technical Qualification in Healthcare Science - £149.50 

• T Level Technical Qualification in Science - £162.00 

Late registration or registration amendment - £21.00 Very late registration or registration amendment - £42.50  
 
You won’t be unable to register students for the 2025-26 session after Friday 31 July 2026. Take a look at our T Level Portal User Guide.  
 
You won’t be able to register students for the 2025-26 session after Friday 31 July 2026. Take a look at our T Level Portal User Guide for instructions on how to register students.   
Please see our Key Dates Schedule for full details of key dates throughout the year. If you require any additional information, please contact our Assessment Delivery team via email at [email protected].   

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Annual Monitoring Review (AMR): complete your self-assessment form  

Once you’ve made your registrations, your Quality Reviewer (QR) will reach out to confirm the date of your AMR this session. They will provide your quality contact with a link to the self-assessment form. Please complete and return this form within 10 working days. 

The self-assessment form asks you to:  

• detail any policies or procedures that have been updated or changed since your last AMR, or since your approval review if you are a new provider 

• confirm which T Level qualifications you’re delivering this session 

• confirm that you have the correct staff, work placements, and physical resources to support delivery.  

If you’re a newly approved T Level provider and haven’t yet made registrations, please do so as soon as possible and no later than Saturday 1 November. Once you’ve registered your students we’ll allocate a Quality Reviewer who will plan your AMR and send you a link to a self-assessment form, which must be completed and returned within 10 working days.  

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Key dates for the autumn 2025 series and details on advanced assessment materials 

The autumn series each year is aimed at resitting students from the previous series, or for those who decoupled and did not sit all components in the summer of their year one, who wish to complete their core component ahead of the summer of year two. An autumn series is not suitable for first year students, as there is insufficient time for delivery of course content between starting in September and sitting the assessments in November.  

Please add the following key dates to your diary for the Employer Set Project (ESP) assessment windows and booking cut offs for the autumn 2025 series. But remember, these are the bookings deadlines, and we would always recommend bookings for resitting students this autumn series be made as soon as possible.     

Advanced assessment materials  

Each year we carry out a provider consultation about the dates and processes related to our Key Dates Schedule. This year, you said that you’d like us to provide more detailed information around key dates relating to advanced assessment materials. These are the assessment materials which are shared with providers or students in advance of the start of the assessment window, such as Tutor Guides, or, in some cases, pre-assessment activities for students.    

In response to your feedback, we've produced a new document which shows when advanced assessment materials will be available, as well as who can access them and when. Download the autumn 2025 document.  

Please note that live assessment materials (hard copies or downloaded electronic PDF versions) will be available three working days before the start date of the assessment or assessment window.  

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Summer 2026 - Occupational Specialism bookings for second-year T Level students  

Please remember that you need to book your second-year students onto their chosen Occupational Specialism (OS) for the summer 2026 assessment series by the dates below at the latest. These are the final deadlines for booking, so we encourage you to make bookings as soon as possible, rather than waiting until the cut-off date.  

This is particularly important for T Level Education and Early Years (603/5829/4), as timely bookings are required to ensure that a visiting moderator can be allocated. visiting moderator can be allocated.  

Please follow the booking instructions in the T Level Portal Guide. 

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Returning papers via the yellow label service 

T Level core exam papers A and B should be returned via the yellow label service. Please remember that if you have assessments taking place on days where you don’t have daily scheduled collections (May-June only), you’ll need to book an ad hoc collection to return these exam papers.    

Contact Parcelforce Worldwide’s exams helpdesk to book your ad-hoc collection online or call the helpdesk on 0344 561 7998.  

You must prepare for this collection by packing all assessment materials (including completed papers only and the invigilators’ register) into the grey envelopes you received with the papers. Please then store these in a secure location within your centre until they’re collected by ParcelForce Worldwide.   

Yellow label returns must be arranged according to the steps outlined above and mustn’t be dropped off at the local Post Office, as this increases the risk of parcels getting lost. Read more. 

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Share your feedback 

Provider annual review: we need your feedback  

To ensure T Levels remain at the forefront of education, we have them reviewed by industry representatives and providers each year. This ensures our qualifications remain valid and reflective of current industry practice.    

As part of this process, we’d welcome your feedback on the following T Level technical qualifications:  

• Health (603/7066/X)  

• Healthcare Science (603/7083/X)  

• Science (603/6989/9)  

• Education and Early Years (603/5829/4) (Generation 1)  

Please complete the survey before Friday 28 November to share your thoughts. Thank you to everyone who completed our survey on the Education and Early Years qualification (Generation 2) last month. 

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Updates from the Department for Education (DfE) 

Department for Education (DfE) update to T Level funding from 2027-28   
The DfE has updated their T Levels Funding Guide 2025 to 2026 to confirm a change to the funding methodology from the 2027 to 2028 academic year onwards.  
  
Key points to be aware of:  

• for 2025-26 and 2026-27, the funding methodology will stay the same 

• from 2027-28, initial allocations will be based solely on student numbers from the start of the previous academic year (as returned in your ILR R04 or autumn school census) 

• institutions will no longer need to submit estimated student numbers to inform allocations 

• there will also be no T Level registration application process for providers planning to introduce T Levels from 2027-28 

• an in-year reconciliation process will continue, to account for any over or under delivery.  

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Supporting higher education providers with T Levels    
The DfE has updated their guidance for higher education providers (mainly universities) to help them understand T Levels and how they fit with admissions. It’s useful to be aware of this guidance to help with progression conversations with your students. Read the full update. 

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Training and events 

Standardisation training  

We’ve listened to your feedback, and standardisation training materials will now be available directly on our website instead of on our Portal. We’ve made this change to make access to these materials quicker and easier for you.  

The materials are available to download from each T Level qualification page, by navigating to the provider standardisation section, which is located within the ‘Support Materials’ tab.  

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Administration training  

Administration training materials are available on our moderation page to support your teams in preparing for the 2025-26 assessment window.  

The training consists of a series of short videos covering essential processes, including:  

• how to access assessment materials 

• how to submit provider marks for moderation 

• how to view students selected for moderation and upload evidence. 

We recommend all colleagues involved in assessment administration view these videos regularly to ensure you remain confident and up to date with moderation requirements.  

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T Level Celebration Week 

From Monday 13 to Friday 17 October: celebrating T Level success!  

We’re supporting T Level Celebration Week and we’d encourage you and your students to get involved. Share your stories and put the spotlight on your students’ successes, as well as celebrating your colleagues and placement partners who make T Level pathways possible. Download the toolkit from the DfE and visit our social media channels next week to see some of the stories we’re sharing. 

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Keep your contact details up to date  

To ensure we can reach the right colleagues with important updates, please notify us of any staff changes by using our online form.  

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Summer 2025 post-results services and understanding your students’ results 

Summer 2025 T Level results were released to students on Thursday 14 August, and there’s still time to consider one of our JCQ aligned post-results options.    

Some post-results services are still available to support students should they or you have any queries relating to their assessment results, and our deadline for requesting these are set out below:   

All requests relating to the external assessment can be submitted through the Portal, or you can use the form on our website to request a review of moderation.   

As part of our commitment to support you with interpreting T Level results, we’ve pulled together a range of key materials and guidance. These resources will help you to better understand overall performance, prepare for any autumn retakes, and reflect on your delivery for future cohorts. Read more.  

How to view final moderation reports 

You can view the final moderation reports in the Portal by using the batch reports dropdown. This can be found in the ‘download learner results’ section.    

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T Level readiness: autumn 2025 series  

Ahead of the autumn 2025 series, we wanted to share some key updates on our Key Dates Schedule, advanced assessment materials and entry deadlines. 

Key Dates Schedule: our Key Dates Schedule for 2025/26 and 2026/27, along with the response document to your feedback during the consultation period, are now available.  

Advanced assessment materials: due to the wide range of advanced assessment materials for each of our T Level qualifications, we’ll publish a bespoke webpage on Wednesday 1 October with all the information you need. This will include details on advanced materials for each Employer Set Project for the autumn series, who they can be shared with, and when they’ll be received.   

Entry deadlines for core assessments:  

- Entry deadlines for all core assessments (except Science) are Monday 20 October. 

- Entry deadlines for Science core assessments are Monday 27 October. 

- Standard registration for new cohorts for our Education and Early Years, Health, Healthcare Science and Science qualifications started on Monday 1 September and closes on Friday 31 October. 

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Further JCQ Alignment  
As part of ongoing alignment with JCQ, from 2025-26 we’re adopting the JCQ Instructions for Conducting Examinations as our primary exam regulations document for T Level external assessments. This aligns our approach with other T Levels, as well as GCSE and A Levels, and aims to reduce the administrative burden on providers who previously have had to manage both the JCQ and NCFE regulations.  
 
Further information will be published on our website ahead of the autumn series.  

If you need any further information, please contact our Assessment Delivery team via email at [email protected]. 

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Occupational Specialism (OS) bookings for second year T Level students  

Please note that all second year T Level students will need to be booked onto their chosen Occupational Specialism (OS) for the summer 2026 assessment series.  

We recommend completing this process as early as possible but no later than the deadline outlined below and on the Key Dates Schedule. Please ask your examinations team to follow the booking guidelines in the T Level Portal Guide. 

If any of your students are no longer completing the qualification or they are deferring until next session, please notify our Moderation team via email at [email protected].   

Standardisation materials for T Levels 

We’ve listened to your feedback, and standardisation materials will now be available directly on our website rather than via the NCFE Portal. This change is designed to reduce barriers, improve efficiency, and make access quicker and simpler for all providers.  

The internal standardisation materials will be available to download from the beginning of October 2025, within the qualifications area, located under Support Materials for each separate qualification. This CPD package is designed to be used with your teams and to support them to align assessment decisions and expectations for internally assessed externally moderated components. It will also provide an opportunity for reflection, referencing the appropriate NCFE Chief Examiner/Chief Moderator Reports from summer 2025.  

The internal standardisation materials should be accessed by everyone involved in the delivery and assessment of the qualifications and used as part of your annual standardisation activities.  

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Employer Support Fund for T Level industry placements    
As previously shared, the Department for Education has introduced the Employer support fund for T Level industry placements to support employers with essential costs related to T Level industry placements.  

Further updates were published on Tuesday 5 August, including:  

• claim deadlines and payment windows – providers must submit claims by the dates below to receive payment for placements that took place during the relevant period:  

• Tuesday 30 September 2025 – for placements delivered between April and September 2025  

• Sunday 30 November 2025 – for placements delivered in October and November 2025  

• Saturday 31 January – for placements delivered in December 2025 and January     

• Tuesday 31 March – for placements delivered in February and March 

• confirmation that the online claims tool will be available in early September 2025  

• addition of the ESF Employer Declaration Form. 

The opt-in window has now closed, therefore if an employer didn’t opt in by this date, they’ll be unable to access the fund for 2025–26.  

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