This is at least a step in the right direction. Nice to hear that some of the Abs are actually taking our comments and concerns back and doing something about them.

 

John Garside

Exams Coordinator

Stourbridge College

 

 

1. C&G are going to take the latest upgrade from BTL for e-volve and are developing an improved reporting service for the results to include more information on what the candidates got wrong, a facility to see how the candidate has done across a range of tests, and improved searching. As with last year they are promising that it will soon work with screen readers.
2. Another issue raised in the Sixth Form College session was the difficulties with Oral Modifiers and modified papers. AQA appears to be reducing the options available for modified papers and assuming that we will modify the papers ourselves or facilitate the candidate with technology solutions such as screen readers.
3. VTCT were promoting their Catering and Hospitality products that they launched last year - an interesting alternative to C&G who I find problematic at present and it would put the whole of an area under one manager with the same awarding body.
4. AoC have allowed me to publicise this forum via their Email contacts so hopefully we will get some more members.

• Michael Turner (head honcho of JCQ) made the mistake of telling the conference how wonderful everything is and how good they are to us. He then got both barrels from the floor about centre inspections, access arrangements and their generally unhelpful attitude towards us. The AoC chair did not spring to his defence and he has promised to review the issues raised.
• A2C now has a proper IT manager in charge. Reading between the lines he has inherited a bag of problems which he is trying to whip into shape, but is still encountering problems. As in previous years it is jam (flavour unspecified, it may not be one that we would have chosen) and the dates have slipped again. The key bits of information are that six of the seven JCQ boards are committed to making it work (the Scots have left), and that the standard will be open source so unlike EDI which is copywrite to JCQ the standard can be adopted by the other boards.
• Edexcel's on-demand Funky Skills ICT has gone live without any publicity. They are going to increase the length of time before the exam that you can download files. They are releasing a new "bulk" facility on Edexcelonline in March to allow us to enter BTEC results - very similar to how Walled-Garden allows us to do the same thing with C&G so better than the current version of Edexcelonline where you do it individually but not as good as EDI. They are also developing a replacement to Promissor for Functional Skills onscreen tests which should be a lot easier to maintain, but it may not be live for a year.
• John Perks from the Information Authority was an excellent speaker. There is at last a value to us of the ULN - from next month ACE will be using it to automatically accept qualifications so we will not have to upload evidence in future for all qualifications! He explained the new ILR requirements for 13/14 which looks an improvement over the current year - less data to upload. As a group we analysed the A2C and the conclusion was that it may be of some benefit to us in the long term but that it is currently being used as an excuse by ERM providers and awarding bodies to delay projects and there will be a hump to overcome with the transition.
• Alan Waymont hosted a good series of discussions over the issues that we are all having with JCQ. As usual Mr Black (?), Mr Hemmings and Mr Waymont had a lot to say but others made excellent points. Alan is campaigning over various issues and is going to post a proforma letter on here for us to get our Principals / Head of Centres to send to the AoC to support it. 
• We sat down for dinner this year!

 

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This email and any content are confidential and intended solely for
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Opinions expressed are not necessarily those of Herefordshire College of Technology.

Herefordshire College of Technology. Folly Lane, Hereford.
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