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Blog posted by: Esme Winch, Managing Director, Tuesday 20 March 2018.

I’m delighted to share the positive news that our new model for combined level V Cert qualifications has been received extremely well by the Department for Education (DfE). In their latest update to the published list of approved qualifications, our redeveloped Health and Fitness qualification is the first V Cert of this kind to appear on the list for the 2020 performance tables. This news gives us further confidence in this new model and the next round of submissions.

We’ve laid out our 2020 vision and our plan of action for 2020 in previous communications, and whilst the DfE may have adjusted the timescales and the benchmarks, our plan to implement a new model for V Certs has remained consistent.

Our Product Development team have worked tirelessly on the structure, content and assessment model of the new qualifications. They have done so alongside teachers who have tested and advised on the model to make this a product that has been created for teachers, by teachers.

We understand that teacher workload is a persistent issue. Consequently, we will be doing our best to support teachers as they move over to the qualifications, with a full set of teaching resources for unit one, ready by first teaching in September.

In further good news, all of our Key Stage 5 qualifications which were submitted in the first window have been approved by the DfE. As well as being great technical alternatives at Level 3, they also represent a direct progression from V Certs at Key Stage 4 onto Key Stage 5. Using the same principles of applied learning and a mixture of project based work and assessment, this allows for continuity of a style of learning beneficial to many pupils. We’ve a range of subject areas to explore which have been included in the tables and with the imminent freeze in the submission process after 2020, this is a great time to explore Key Stage 5 options with NCFE and CACHE.

The second submission window for the 2020 performance tables closed on Friday 16 March 2018. During this window, we submitted many of our V Cert qualifications as redeveloped combined level technical awards in subject areas including: Business and Enterprise, Art and Design, Food and Cookery, Engineering Studies, Performance Skills, Music Technology and new qualifications: Sports Studies and Digital Technology. We're also submitting Level 2 qualifications from CACHE in Childcare and Development and Health and Social Care. The next expected update to the published list of approved qualifications for this second window will be during the spring/summer session.

We’ll keep you informed throughout this process and you can use our most recent quick guide which will contain our latest information as well as our performance tables news section of our website.