8 Key changes to administering reformed Functional Skills

As schools and colleges start to teach OCR’s reformed Functional Skills in English and Maths, I wanted to outline some of the key changes in the way to administer these as you will no longer use Interchange to make entries, submit claims and view results. Instead, you will use a new secure website: secure.ocr.org.uk. 

1 Straightforward user roles and permissions 

Within the new system, we set up one centre user who can then set up the rest of the users. There are three roles: 

• Super user – your main centre administrator with full access to the system. 
• Senior manager – users who can register candidates, submit moderation requests and view results. 
• General user – users who can view entries and results but can’t initiate forms (this is the best role to give tutors/teachers you want to be able to view information but not register candidates, order test papers or submit moderation forms). 

You can also customise the senior manager and general user roles for an individual if you do not want them to access the full range of activities enabled for that role. 

2 New form-based approach 

We’re moving to a ‘shared form’ approach. Rather than submit a form to OCR, we’ll be working on an online form together. Each form will have a ‘workflow’ associated with it, which will pass the form between you at the centre and us the awarding organisation or ‘AO’. Each organisation and person will have a user inbox where you’ll get notifications of when you need to carry out the next step. 

To administer reformed Functional Skills, there are up to four forms you’ll need to use – three that you create and one which we create and send to you. 

• Booking – This form allows you to register your candidates, order paper-based question papers and/or schedule on-screen tests. 
• Moderation – Once the centre assessment has been marked by you, you can request your moderation and upload candidates’ work using this form. There’s no more sending work in the post. 
• On-screen practice test booking – You can use this form to schedule practice on-screen tests (you’ll use the booking form for the live tests). 
• Self-assessment – We will send this form to you so you can carry out English tests and submit your speaking, listening and communicating components for all levels. Once you complete this, the self-assessment is valid for a year and we’ll let you know 3 months before it expires so you can update the form. 

3 No deadlines and ‘named entries’ only 

There are no deadlines for Functional Skills – you can register students using the booking form whenever you like. Then, when you know you want to take the test, you can order the question paper or schedule the on-screen test. 

Registrations are processed instantly so we only accept ‘named entries’, where you provide all the candidates’ details – there’s no longer any need for ‘unnamed entries’. You just order papers a minimum of 5 working days or schedule on-screen tests 20 minutes before your chosen test date – all within the booking form. 

The booking form also allows you to keep a cohort together and carry out all the activities as one group. You can have more than one booking form. 

4 Paper attendance lists 

You’ll no longer need to submit an attendance list online. Instead, we’ll include an attendance list with your question papers. Crucially, this will show you which version of the provided question papers should be given to each candidate. Candidates must sit the version they have been assigned. 

5 New invigilation rule 

It’s also worth being aware of a new rule, which is common to all awarding bodies. For reformed Functional Skills, tutors of a subject cannot invigilate any tests for that subject or handle the question papers. (English tutors can still invigilate mathematics and vice versa.) Full details are available in the OCR Instructions for Conducting Examinations (OCR ICE). 

6 Full integration with Surpass for on-screen tests

For those of you who already use our computer-based test system, Surpass, I’d like to reassure you that the new secure website and Surpass are fully integrated. When you enter candidate details on to a booking and schedule on-screen tests, these details are sent across to Surpass. In fact, apart from invigilation and the test taking itself, you can do all the admin within your booking form. 

7 Additional results reporting 

We have additional functionality within the on-screen test system Surpass – although results are available from the secure site, for both paper-based and on-screen tests you can generate a results breakdown by topic within Surpass. This shows how students did in each topic area in English and maths in order to support your results analysis. 

8 Centre assessments – using the moderation form 

All Entry Level assessments and Level 1 and 2 Speaking, Listening and Communicating assessments are marked by you and moderated by OCR. The entire moderation process is done from within the moderation form – you tell us which students you wish to be moderated, we pick a sample, you upload the requested sample of work (or the observation records for SLC) to the moderation form and then receive feedback all in one place. 

The Entry Level assessments and the Level 1 and 2 SLC assessments can be downloaded from the ‘Product Library’ area of the secure website. 

Supporting you fully 

We’re aware that any change to a system also means people need to learn how to use it, so we’re committed to providing you with as much support as we can. We’ve therefore created bite-sized videos taking you through each stage of each process. These are easily accessible whenever you attempt a task from the ‘Key OCR Documents’ box on the home page of the secure site. For more details about each process, you can also take a look at our ‘administration at a glance’ page. 

We’re also running a number of admin essentials online training sessions every month, with both morning and early evening sessions available. These are an ideal opportunity to hear how the reformed Functional Skills administration works and to ask any questions you may have about the admin process. 

Looking to get started? 

If you’re already approved to offer legacy Functional Skills with OCR you just need to email us, including your centre number and details (name and email address) of the centre administrator, and we will extend your approval to our reformed Functional Skills. If you haven’t run OCR Functional Skills before, you need to complete Sections A to D of the vocational centre approval form and then we’ll be in touch with the next steps!

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