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We now offer you the choice of virtual or face-to-face moderation visits - see below for more information.
This section applies to moderation for Cambridge Technicals internally assessed units. Assessment and moderation can take place at any time.
For more details about the assessment, authentication and internal standardisation, see the following page:
Approved centres are entitled to two free visits per subject area/sector per academic year. If required, you can request additional moderation visits by contacting the VQ Panel Management team at VQ.panelmanagement@ocr.org.uk. These are charged at the standard visit fee (see the fees list).
Moderation visits cover both 2012 and 2016 suites. If you deliver both suites, you will still receive two free visits per year.
Once you have made your first entries, we will allocate a moderator to your centre:
We recommend arranging the first visit of the year as early as possible, especially when first approved for a qualification. This enables you to move forward with confidence towards final assessment and moderation. This is particularly important if your centre is delivering qualifications through one-year programmes.
If you have made entries but have not been contacted by your moderator, please contact us.
If candidates require Cambridge Technicals results in time for university entrance or to coincide with the A Level results release, please book your final visit by 15 May to make sure the visit is completed by 30 June.
Visits cannot take place during the last two weeks of August.
From September 2022, we are offering centres the choice of a virtual visit with a moderator or an in centre face-to face visit with a moderator. Both options support your better understanding of delivery and assessment:
You need you to tell your moderator if you would prefer a virtual or a face-to-face in-centre moderation visit 4 weeks before the moderation visit takes place.
If you wish to change the type or timing of your visit, please get in touch with your moderator. We will try to change your visit where possible but please note that it is usually easier to delay a visit rather than bring it forward. It may not always be possible to change from a virtual visit to a face-to-face in-centre visit as this will depend on the availability of a moderator in your area.
If centres are working together in a consortium, i.e. in cases where all candidates from different centres have been taught and are assessed together, but where they are entered through the centre at which they are on roll, each consortium is entitled to two free visits per subject area/sector per academic year. If you require additional moderation visits for centres within the consortium, please see instructions above regarding requesting additional visits and fees.
You must complete the centre consortium arrangements form within the JCQ Centre Admin Portal (CAP) – from the Forms section, select ‘Centre consortium arrangements’. You can access the JCQ Centre Admin Portal from Interchange.
Remember to complete arrangements for consortia every academic year
When you are ready to submit candidates’ work for external moderation, you should make a claim for each candidate via Interchange.
You will not be able to build or submit a claim without valid entries. Ensure all entries (including top-up and move down entries) are made at least four weeks before a planned moderation visit.
To allow visiting moderators time to select a sample of candidates’ work for moderation, ensure the claim is made at least two weeks before the scheduled moderation visit.
You must only submit a claim when you are ready for the claim to be moderated and processed.
See the following page for step-by-step instructions for making a claim:
It is also possible to re-claim units at a higher grade.
Once the claims have been submitted, your moderator will select a sample and then you will receive an email from Interchange telling you the sample is ready to view.
The earliest you would receive a sample request is three weeks before a face-to-face visit.
In all cases, you should expect to receive all sample requests at least 10 days before the moderation visit, provided you have uploaded your claim(s) at least 2 weeks before your visit date.
To view the selected sample in Interchange:
You may be asked for up to six portfolios per assessor per unit (where possible), and must make sure this work is available at the moderation visit.
In some cases, you may also be asked to share additional pieces of evidence on the day of your moderation visit and you should be prepared to share this with the moderator.
You must upload your candidate work a minimum of 5 days before the virtual visit.
The main way to send us your sample of candidate work will be through our digital submission platform, Secure Exchange.
We have produced guidance to show you how to use Secure Exchange and upload your candidate work:
It’s important students produce work in a format that will allow you to prepare your samples easily. Please see the guidance below which provides information on how to prepare your work to be uploaded, file formats and how to label files as well as additional guidance on how to photograph and video Art and Design candidate work, prepare samples for Sport and Physical Activity (2016 suite) and prepare animated evidence for Information Technology, Digital Media and Media.
There is no need to send the candidate work to your moderator ahead of your visit. However, you must ensure that the sample of work requested is available for the moderator to view on the day of their visit and that other candidate work is easily accessible should it be requested by your moderator on the day.
Virtual moderation visits
The virtual visit will take place via Microsoft Teams.
The structure of your virtual visit will be as follows. The moderator will:
Face-to-face moderation visits
The structure of the in-centre face-to-face visit will be as follows:
You must make sure that:
Access to candidates is not required during the external moderation process.
Due to internal safeguarding policies we appreciate centres may need to see identification from visiting moderators before they are allowed access to the site. We do not issue visiting moderators with any form of identification, and we have advised moderators they should bring the following with them to any visit:
We also suggest visiting moderators arrange to meet their named contact on arrival at the centre, as they will have the moderator’s details and can verify these with their identification.
If your safeguarding policy requires some form of supervision for visitors whilst on site, this requirement should be discussed with the moderator before the visit so there is no impact on the moderation process.
We have advised visiting moderators of what identification they should take with them on visits; however, if you have any concerns then please contact our Customer Support Centre.
If the claim is not withdrawn, you will receive an email to say the claim has been sent to us.
We will then email you a moderation visit report after the quality assurance has taken place. You will also be able to view the results for each candidate via the candidate achievement report within Interchange.
Candidate work must be retained by the centre until after the certificates have been issued or any reviews of results processed. We will not consider any enquiries if the work is not retained.
You may find it helpful to join one of our Cambridge Technicals: Admin Essentials training events.