Issuing June 2018 Cambridge Technicals (2016) Near Pass unit grades

Although we have already issued ‘historic’ Near Pass grades for those students who achieved a Near Pass in previous exam series, we will be issuing Near Pass grades in the June 2018 series as part of the Cambridge Technicals (2016) results for the first time. In this blog, we talk to Paul Featherstone from Capita SIMS, who explains what will happen when the results are issued via A2C. We also describe how schools and colleges will be able to view the new Near Pass grades within Interchange and what you will receive on results day.

Background

We have introduced a new ‘Near Pass’ unit grade for Level 3 Cambridge Technicals (2016) for students who narrowly miss a Pass on externally assessed units. This Near Pass will be displayed as ‘R’ in our results documentation. Changes to official guidelines mean we can provide a ‘safety net’ for Cambridge Technicals students that exists on other qualifications such as A Levels. Students who just miss a Pass on one or more externally assessed units will not be prevented from passing the qualification, providing they have a Pass or above on internally assessed units.

Will we receive an EDI results file?

If you included the UCI (unique candidate identifier) when you made your entries, you will receive an EDI results file via A2C. All the test unit grades for each candidate will be contained within one file, which will be issued at 12.01am on 15 August.

Paul Featherstone joins us to explain how the results will appear in your MIS

Will the R grade appear in our management information system?

Although the R unit grade will be included within the EDI file, it will fail to import into SIMS Exams Organiser. However, the R grade is only awarded for units and not for the overall award. This means all qualification grades will import correctly into your MIS even if the units used towards them achieve an R grade.

Why won’t the R grade appear?

For grades to appear in your management information system (MIS), they need to be included within the JCQ-agreed gradeset. Since the additional grade was created so late in the year, it was too late to change the gradeset for this year as this gradeset may be in use by other awarding bodies for other qualifications.

What will happen with a result file with a Grade R?

If a student is awarded an R grade this summer for a Cambridge Technical unit, when the results file is imported, these R grade results will fail to import. Within SIMS, the error message below will appear. All other results should import as expected.

Can the results be entered manually?

It’s not possible to make manual entries via a marksheet or as a non-EDI entry as the available grades that a user can select is driven by those defined in the gradeset.

What will the results look like? 

For any candidates who achieve an R unit grade, their result will show as blank within the EDI Unit Result column. It is worth being aware that for candidates who were absent or have a ‘pending’ grade, their results will also show as blank within this column. 

Where will we be able to view the R grade? 

To view all students’ unit grades and marks, including the Near Pass R grades, take a look at the candidate unit achievement report within Interchange. This will be available by 15 August. 

This shows unit results for examined and moderated units together with the date achieved. You can generate it for individual candidates, a candidate range or the whole cohort. It updates dynamically, taking into account any changes that are made. 

To access the report, log in to Interchange, hover over ‘Cambridge Technicals’, click on 'Results documents' in the left-hand menu and fill in the relevant details. To include candidates’ previous results on the report, leave the ‘session’ dropdown box blank. 

Hard copy 'control reports' will be sent to arrive on 15 August. These show the grade or 'Unclassified' for all units together with the candidate's marks. An example is available on our website. If any full award certificates have been achieved, these will also be included. 

What will happen in 2018/19? 

We are working with the JCQ to introduce a new gradeset that includes the R grade for future series.

For more information or help… 

• If you have a query about your MIS, please contact your MIS provider. 
• If you have a query about how the qualification will be awarded, please call us on 02476 851509.

About the author

Paul Featherstone, Senior Product Manager, Capita SIMS

Paul Featherstone is a Senior Product Manager at Capita SIMS and has worked for Capita for nearly four years after supporting the same software at a support team for over 13 years. Paul spends his time divided between product developments in the current SIMS Suite of software, but is very excited to be part of a new journey into our next generation software including a new fresh and cloud based examinations management suite of software.