T Levels autumn assessment series – what you need to know | NCFE

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T Levels autumn assessment series – what you need to know

For additional information on the autumn assessment series and top tips for ESP upload, please visit our autumn assessment series webpage.

As your provider has students registered for either the core exams or Employer Set Project (ESP) in the autumn assessment series, we wanted to share some useful reminders with you to help ensure these assessments go smoothly. 

As a reminder, we’ve changed how students can take the core exam and ESP in their first attempt, therefore you may have students sitting or resitting one or both subcomponents. The booking cut-off for all assessments has now passed and any bookings made now will be subject to late booking fees. Please see below for more information on reasonable adjustments and special considerations for all assessments, and guidance specific to the ESP and core exams.  

Reasonable adjustments 

Reasonable adjustments should be put in place before the assessment takes place to reduce the effect of a disability or difficulty that places students at a substantial disadvantage during an assessment. They should be declared at the point of registration but can be added to the Portal up to the date of the assessment. 

Special considerations 

Special considerations are intended to support students who face an unexpected disadvantage at the time of an assessment for reasons outside of their control. Requests can be applied for after an assessment, but the deadline is five working days following the date of the assessment or the last day of a window.  

Employer Set Project (ESP) key reminders 

Pre-assessment 

  • You can access assessment material digitally via the NCFE Portal. This will be available three working days prior to the assessment, unless otherwise specified in the Key Dates Schedule. These materials will include advanced assessment materials where available, and provider guides including checklists to support you with evidence upload. 
  • Please ensure you check the Key Dates Schedule and provider guides for requirements and completion deadlines, as some pathways have specified dates and times for tasks within the window. 
  • You should test recording equipment prior to assessments to ensure there are no issues on the day. You should also have back-up systems and processes in place to ensure recordings are carried out, saved and stored securely. Please contact us immediately on 0191 239 8000 if you encounter any issues. 

Post-assessment – evidence upload 

  • Following your feedback and to overcome the challenges some providers faced when uploading evidence during the summer assessment series, we’ve made several improvements to our Portal to make things easier for your colleagues. This includes improvements to the speed and capacity of the NCFE Portal. The Portal will also now tell you how much of your evidence has uploaded and confirm when uploads are complete.  
  • Although we’ve made many improvements to our Portal, we understand that with many providers using it at the same time, and varying internet speeds, you may still have some challenges with upload speed. To support you with using the Portal, we’ve created an upload guidance document with all the information you need, including maximum file sizes and formats. Please also use the checklists which are contained within the assessment materials on the Portal. Important: you must ensure the maximum file size that you’re uploading is 2GB! 
  • Evidence must be uploaded three working days after the closure of the assessment window. This has been extended from two days in summer 2023. We’ve made this change to give you more time as we understand some of you found it challenging last year to upload all the evidence before the deadline.  
  • We’ll check the evidence after it has been uploaded, and if necessary, we’ll let you know if there’s any missing or corrupt evidence or if there are any other problems with the evidence you’ve uploaded. We’ll apply strict timescales to our review and response, minimising any risk to students’ results.  

Core exams key reminders 

  • As a reminder, students must complete both core papers A and B in the same series for all attempts, with a core exam sub-component result based on the combined outcomes within a series. They can’t split their attempts on each paper across different series, or resit just one of the two core exam papers.  

Paper-based assessments 

  • You’ll receive papers from three working days prior to each assessment. 
  • Please return papers using the Yellow Label service. Papers must be returned after each assessment, and you should not, for example, retain paper A papers to return alongside paper B papers.  
  • There is no need to return unused assessment papers. 

Online assessments 

  • Please open SecureClient on the devices that will be used during the assessments to allow updates to run prior to the first assessment. We recommend that this is done at least one day before the assessment, not on the same day as any scheduled assessments.  

Invigilated assessments 

  • We’d like to remind you that there is a 30-minute flexible window on the start time (as stated in the Key Dates Schedule) with no requirement to notify NCFE. You can submit an assessment variation request for our approval if the 30-minute flexibility is insufficient. 

Further support 

If you need any further support in relation to the autumn assessment, please get in touch with us any time via email at [email protected].