Lessons learned

Last summer’s awarding of VTQs saw 20,000 students affected by delays or inaccuracies. Since then, a rigorous process has begun to understand how this happened and reduce the chances of a repeat. Michael Hanton outlines how Ofqual has responded

The last academic year marked a welcome step towards normality. That more than a million vocational and technical qualifications (VTQ) results were issued to students in summer 2022 was only possible because of the enormous efforts of teachers, school and college leaders, awarding organisations, exams officers and, above all, students.

Students took exams and formal assessments for the full spectrum of regulated qualifications – from GCSE, AS and A Levels to a complete series of VTQs – for the first time since the pandemic. Plus, for the first time ever, around 1,000 students received T Level certificates.

Nevertheless, some 20,000 students were affected by delays or inaccuracies to their VTQ grades this summer. This is, frankly, unacceptable. Everyone wants students to get their results when they expect to, regardless of the type of qualification. That’s why Ofqual launched a major review to understand why this happened and to reduce the chance of it happening again.

Since August, Ofqual has heard from a range of organisations – including schools, colleges, exams officers, awarding organisations and UCAS, as well as parents and students – to understand what went wrong. Before the year was out, we published an action plan to set out the steps needed to support the safe and timely delivery of results in 2023 and beyond. Having the right plans in place is crucial to protect students from the uncertainty and anxiety caused by late results.

We all want the same thing: students getting accurate results, on time, in 2023. The actions we set out include a new VTQ results taskforce, which Ofqual’s chief regulator will chair, to actively monitor the new arrangements.

The actions within the plan are intended to give you more support for delivery in 2023, without increasing workload and, wherever possible, decreasing it.

To this end, Ofqual will launch and host a central hub to bring together all the key information provided by awarding organisations into a ‘one-stop shop’. This will make it easier for you to keep track of the different deadlines and information requests. Awarding organisations will collect, and keep up to date, contact details for a senior leader in every school and college who has the authority to access information and progress decisions swiftly in the run-up to results days.

Next, there will be a new results deadline to ensure that all results needed for progression to further and higher education are issued on or before A Level results day. Furthermore, Ofqual is supporting exams officers in their role by making sure that awarding organisations provide them with the necessary training to manage the administration of VTQ assessments.

Of course Ofqual recognises that, while there are many differences between qualifications, parity in the treatment of students is vital. This is particularly so where students have taken different types of qualifications that are awarded alongside one another. Like you, we want everyone involved in assessing students, delivering exams, or liaising with awarding organisations to be properly equipped to do so.

Reflecting the seriousness of what happened in 2022, Ofqual’s investigation of the awarding organisations involved continues. We will report on that later this year and take any regulatory action that is appropriate.

In the meantime, Ofqual continues to listen and gather information, so please contact us at discussions@ofqual.gov.uk to share your views.

MICHAEL HANTON is deputy chief regulator at Ofqual

There is no doubt that people learn from their experiences. Some experiences are ‘Aha!’ moments that are never forgotten, while others drip-feed into our brains over time.

Whether you are looking to share knowledge, teach skills or develop behaviours, there is plenty of evidence to suggest that the act of ‘doing’ something will help. This is commonly described as experiential education.

Experiential education is a craft made up of a mix of art and science. It’s one that takes practice and experience to develop, and often involves a lot of trial and error. There are few hard and fast rules, and it requires judgement to be effective.

If you wish to become a great, modern experiential educator, you need to develop a wide range of tools and techniques in order to become strategic in your approach. The strategy you use to run your activities will affect how the activity feels to the participants and will strongly influence the learning they draw from it.

Some factors you will need to consider when choosing a strategy include your desired learning outcomes, your participants’ backgrounds, the activity you are planning, the emotional state of your participants and the risks involved.

Learning activities rarely happen in a vacuum. What happened before your activity, what is happening after, what happened last time your participants tried it, the time of day, how good lunch was, and even what the weather is doing might all affect your choice of strategy.

Here are five strategies that you can apply to (almost) any learning experience to maximise its impact.