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In order to help you and your students reduce the impact of lost teaching and learning time and meet public health concerns, for Cambridge Nationals in 2020/21 there will be:
For units left to be taken this year, in most cases, where students have multiple moderated units to complete, they can do one fewer assessment. This approach allows students to complete whole assessments for the units chosen, rather than multiple partial assessments.
For Information Technologies, since the qualification is made up of two units, there will not be a reduction in the number of assessments. However, where a student was due to take an assessment in summer 2020, an assessed grade will be available to them.
To reflect public health guidelines and ongoing disruption, we’ve reviewed those units where the requirements may present significant challenges because they rely on access to settings, facilities and equipment which may not be possible, or they require physical interaction with others which may not be possible.
The adaptations will vary depending on the nature of the unit and we will provide further details on the adaptations for each unit as soon as possible.
For those completing the qualification in 2020/21, if any of your students were due to take an external assessment or submit moderated units from 20 March to 31 July 2020 and could not do so then they are eligible for an assessed grade for those units.
An assessed grade is different from the centre assessment grades used in summer 2020. Assessed grades will be produced using the unit results candidates have achieved through completed live assessments. We will do this using the same method we normally use when a student misses an assessment, (for example due to illness). This is why we will issue them at the end of the course when there will be the most evidence to base the grade on. This makes your students’ assessed grades more reliable. It is also why it is important that live assessments are completed in some units this academic year.
All Cambridge Nationals have links between the units (synoptic assessment). In order to give your students the foundation to perform well on the remaining units for 2020/21, you may need to re-cap the content from units you intended to complete last year. Where content from these units could not be taught and is required for success in the remaining units, you should identify and deliver that content, even if an assessed grade is to be issued for the unit.
The DfE expects that content should not be reduced so, although you are not required to assess one of the units planned for 2020/21, you should still consolidate and deliver the content. The 10-hour assessment, the time you would normally spend preparing for an assessment and the time spent supervising during the summative assessment will not be required, which should help to reduce the impact of lost teaching and learning time.
Infographics to be included here.