This section provides guidance for centres relating to results release, supporting documents to understand results, and the available post-results services.

Results

External assessment results will be available in the NCFE Portal on the published day of results release.

The timetable for results release dates for V Certs, CACHE qualifications, and reformed Functional Skills paper-based external assessments can be found in our external assessment timetable.

Results slips can be generated for printing if required from the Portal. For support with this please see our Portal User Guide.

Our Reformed Functional Skills online external assessments are on-demand, meaning there are no published results release dates. Our Functional Skills results service is super-fast, which means you're not left waiting around, with a 6 working days turnaround from Spring 2020.

T Level results information for summer 2022

In the Spring and Summer each year, providers will receive results from the autumn and summer series of T Level assessments. The Understanding your results – T Level technical qualifications document is aimed at supporting Providers in understanding what results are available, where they can be accessed, and how to understand them.

Post-Results Services

We offer a range of post results services across our suites of qualifications to support centres and learners.

Chief Examiner Reports and Sample Papers

Chief Examiner reports, past and sample assessment materials, mark schemes*, and other relevant supporting documentation can be found on the relevant qualification page on our website.  

*Not available for all qualifications

Access to Scripts

Our Level 1/2 Technical Awards (V Certs) and T Level qualifications are covered by our access to scripts service. This service allows centres to request a scanned copy of their marked external assessment papers.

For information regarding this service, costs, timescales, and how to submit a request please visit our access to scripts page.

Learner Feedback

Exclusive to our Functional Skills suite of qualifications, centres can receive up to three different types of learner feedback:

• Online automated feedback  – this is available for all English and maths online assessments, and can be downloaded within our online assessment system at no extra cost.
• Compact and rich feedback reports – these provide a more comprehensive breakdown of your learner's assessment, completed by a subject specialist.

Enquiries about Results

We understand that there are times when a learner or centre feels that a result is variance with their reasonable expectations.

An enquiry about the result can be submitted by a centre on behalf of the learner, however before doing so, please ensure you are familiar with our Enquiries about Results and Assessment Decisions Policy.

Enquiry about results options available to centres are:

• Clerical check: A clerical check includes ensuring all marks or grades awarded to the learner(s) have been correctly recorded and processed.
• Review of marking: A review of marking is carried out by the Chief Examiner, or an appropriate standardised marker, to ensure that the agreed mark scheme/standard has been applied correctly.
• Enquiries about assessment decisions: An enquiry about an internally marked assessment allows the opportunity for checks to be made on whether the assessment criteria were fairly, reliably and consistently applied during the external quality assurance process. This is known as a Review of Moderation for T Level qualifications.

All enquiries about results requests must be submitted using our Enquiries about Results and Assessment Decisions form within the published timescales.

Appeals

The purpose of an appeal is to independently establish if NCFE has applied the correct processes, procedures and policies in a fair and consistent way.

All appeals must be submitted within 30 days of being informed of our original assessment decision and may incur a fee to cover administrative costs.

To submit an appeal, please first review our Appeals Policy, then complete and return the appeals form within the relevant timescales.

Please note: An appeal is not a further opportunity for a review of marking, but to allow you to outline your views and present evidence where you believe we did not apply our procedures consistently, properly, or fairly.

Complaints

Any other area which has resulted in your dissatisfaction may be addressed via our Complaints Procedure.

Grade Boundaries and UMS

For scored external assessments within the CACHE and V Certs suites we’ll publish grade boundaries upon results release. These grade boundaries will be available within the Chief Examiner report, a supporting document found on the relevant qualification page.

Our Technical Awards also employ a Uniform Mark Scheme (UMS) in their scoring. This is a system whereby the raw mark from a learner's paper is converted into a uniform mark (UMS). This is in order to ensure comparability of outcomes between external assessments taken across different assessment sessions.
 
The UMS grade boundaries are fixed, but the conversion scale of raw marks to UMS changes with every assessment session so that learners are not advantaged or disadvantaged by sitting a paper in any particular window. The grade boundaries for each sitting of the external assessment are determined during our awarding process following an external assessment.

For more information about UMS and how it is used to determine overall qualification grades, please refer to the relevant qualification specification.