The retention of learners’ work by recognised centres will assist the development of consistency of centre quality management systems.
The regulatory arrangements place the emphasis on awarding organisations to retain samples of learners’ work to ensure year-on-year monitoring of standards in respect of regulated qualifications.
Gateway Qualifications achieves this through the annual cycle of standardisation for regulated qualifications supported by the on-going quality monitoring and external quality assurance processes.
Centres will need to retain samples of learners’ work, as part of their internal quality management process:
- To ensure year-on-year monitoring of standards of assessment.
- Used in the induction of new assessors.
- The development of existing assessors.
- To provide an understanding of the requirements at different levels.
- To be incorporated into centre standardisation of assessment meetings.
The result will be a representative sample of learners’ work which is retained in the year following certification. It is recommended that the sample of retained learners work and all standardisation meeting minutes be kept for a rolling three-year period.
In developing the strategy for retaining learners’ work the following factors will need to be incorporated:
- Samples retained from the range of programmes delivered within the centre.
- Samples retained at the levels delivered within the centre.
- Samples retained to include all assessors.
- Samples retained to include the assessment methodologies used.
Samples should show examples of top, middle and bottom within a level.
The factors that will constrain the size of the retained sample
- Availability of storage space.
- The frequency of change of assessors.
A justification of why the sample is retained should be clearly referenced, with the sample to include:
- Unit of assessment.
- Assessment task.
- Learner’s work.
- Tutor feedback.
Learner Records
Recognised centres are required to retain records for a period of three years, from the end of the year that they relate to.