Ofqual conference reflections 

There were some good sessions at the conference earlier this week. Sally Collier’s opening emphasised Ofqual’s commitments to pursuing validity in qualifications, making evidence based judgements and being transparent. She emphasiseD the importance of public confidence in AOs (awarding organisations) and that AOs also needed to be transparent and manage risk.

On the same day Ofqual had responded to the Institute for Apprenticeships draft operational plan. Nick Linford of FE Week picked up on this and the ‘blurred relationship’ amongst the EPA (end point assessment) quality assurers. He was also very keen to encourage AOs to get involved as EPA organisations, that by his calculations the market was worth £350 million.

Learners first

Lesley Davies OBE, Principal of Trafford College was very straight-forward and made a cracking plea for us all not to forget the Learner in all we do. Her signatory cry being ‘if your son/daughter was on the receiving end would you be happy with that?’ Like everyone else she raised that there was so much going on and the move to external assessment delivery was bringing a completely new approach and change to the usual rhythm of the college/centre cycle. She also asked AOs to add value, not just supply specifications and assessment but also practice assessment materials, be clearly focused on the vocational, and make sure the language and length of assessments didn’t create barriers. She also sought good item level data to support centres in eliciting the good and failure points of Learners work.

Communications and the qualifications market

Lesley Davies also asked AOs to improve the quality of their communications, including having good information on websites and to share with centres how the AO was preparing employers for the changes to come. The Panel session with Lesley, Nick, Richard March of Kaplan and Gary Machin Chair of the Barber Council was good but too short. The resounding thing from the session for me was the issues around whether the stripping out of qualifications from Apprenticeships is the right thing to do. 

Seems the qualifications market is being eroded at every point. If an AO is not going to be one of say 30 AOs that are to provide technical qualifications, and where Apprenticeships will no longer include a qualification, AOs need to be very clear and sure that where their market is and that they are sustainable. It’s interesting that a large AO that supplies/ied the no 1 market leader vocational qualification has surrendered its AO status and plans to provide only non-regulated training and qualifications.

Validity

I sat in on Paul Newton of Ofqual’s session on validity. Some interesting new thinking will inevitably be coming out from Ofqual at some stage since his session was encouraging AOs to think about a ‘5 step’ approach to validity. Whilst he did mention Ofqual’s lifecycle framework and how validity is built into that he was keen to share this new thinking. Many AOs already have strong, regular validity audits where they go out and ask a variety of qualitative questions of users, including centres to check that qualifications are doing what they are supposed to be doing, and in the right way to help them get things right, also whether policy and service is good. These exercises are positive developments, how AOs will respond to the ‘5-step’ approach will be interesting. Of course, as Paul said this is not a regulatory requirement. For me, having that validity strategy and work programme is a commitment to quality.

I’m going to be writing more about some of the sessions and what I heard for my spring newsletter. If you would like to receive my newsletter let me know.

Heather Venis

Principal, Awarding First

E: Heather@awardingfirst.co.uk

M: 0789 479 6262