May 2021 Construction update

The deadline for the activity is 30 May* and this means all reports should be completed by that date. Please encourage your teams to get samples to Standards Verifiers as soon as possible, so you can receive feedback before the 18 June Q-TAG deadline. There will be no extension to this date, as we will move our focus to the Q-TAG process and associated quality assurance activities.

*with the exception of ’B2’ categorised BTEC qualifications.

You will already be aware of the existing mitigations regarding ‘reduced assessment’ available to mid-flight learners. We have heard and spoken to many of you regarding the need to ensure that mid-flight learners have the impact they’ve experienced this year as a result of the pandemic fully mitigated. In some cases you’ve told us that ‘reduced assessment’ mitigations do not go far enough.

We will release further support on mid-flight learners (including those who will ‘top-up’ next year) as soon as possible to ensure learners are not disadvantaged – and we thank you for your feedback.

We are sorry to inform you that there has been a delay to the release of ‘Z flag’ functionality, where you are able to ‘flag’ a unit as ‘reduced’, meaning it was taught, but not assessed. In line with our guidance, this is required for mid-flight learners, or certificating learners who plan to ‘top-up’ to a larger qualification next year. We will of course adjust deadlines in relation to the submission of this data and would like to reiterate it is not essential to submit reduced assessment flags for certificating learners who are not ‘topping-up’ – where the ‘Q-TAG’ is the primary mitigation for these learners.

Our expectation is that this functionality will be available towards the end of May. We thank you for your patience and understanding whilst we work as fast as we can to ensure this functionality is fully tested before being deployed.

Summer 2021 teacher assessed grades (TAG) support materials for T levels in Construction are published and can be accessed from the qualification page. See link below to access these documents.