Guidance

TQ Grade Boundaries

Published 2 December 2021

Applies to England

Introduction

In order to fulfil our regulatory and accreditation functions as set out in the Apprenticeships, Skills, Children and Learning Act 2009, we require awarding organisations to provide exams delivery data for regulated qualifications.

What data will be collected?

Grade Boundaries data will be collected for all Technical Qualifications (TQs) within T levels.

When will data be collected?

Data will be collected according to the reporting schedule which is agreed and maintained by Ofqual’s data services team.

Updates to formats and guidance

This guidance document will be updated regularly. Any changes to procedure will be incorporated into the guidance document.

How to submit your data

Your data should be submitted to us in CSV format. Please refer to the ‘Connecting to Ofqual’s data portal and uploading data’ document on our web page to help you submit your files to us. If you need to ask us about a data submission please do contact the Data Services team, please do not send your data files via email to Data Services or to any other Ofqual email address, or via Contact the Regulator in the Portal.

Uploaded data

Once files have been successfully uploaded, the data will be validated against a set of validation rules. These are detailed in the sections below. If validation is successful, the data is automatically transferred into our systems and you will receive email confirmation. If the file is unsuccessful at any stage of validation you will receive an email with details of the validation failure. Please correct your file and resubmit it.

Amendments to data

Ofqual staff will not alter data once it has been submitted. If you find an error or omission after you’ve had a successful upload, please notify us by email. We need to reject the existing submission before you can upload a new file.

How your data will be used

This data will be used to undertake our regulatory activities and, where required, to produce Official Statistics to fulfil our responsibility as a government department.

General completion guidelines

• Data should include all grade boundaries for all assessments taken within the reporting period

• The same template should be used to return boundaries for each level of aggregation, wherever applicable (for example component boundaries, sub-component boundaries and assessment boundaries)

• For component level boundaries, ‘component code’ should be given and -2 should be entered for sub-component type and assessment code

• For sub-component level boundaries, ‘component code’ and ‘sub- component type’ should be given and -2 should be entered for assessment code

• For assessment level boundaries, ‘component code’, ‘sub-component type’ and ‘assessment code’ should all be given

File format

The file must be CSV format and the first row must be headers as displayed in the ‘Name’ column of the table below. The subsequent rows must have the values of the data to be reported which must match the format and validation rules below.

Name	Description	Position	Validation Regular Expression	Description of Regular Expression / Accepted values
ReportingDate	Date the file was due to be submitted to Ofqual regardless of when it was actually uploaded (this date will be made available by Ofqual)	1	^ (0[1-9]|[12][0-9]|3[01])[/](0[1-9]|1[012])[/](20)\d\d $ or ^(20)\d\d[-](0[1-9]|1[012])[-](0[1-9]|[12][0-9]|3[01])$	The date in the following format: day (2 digits), forward slash, month (2 digits), forward slash, year (4 digits), or: year (4 digits), a dash, month (2 digits), a dash, day (2 digits)
AssessmentSeries	Assessment series data relates to, for example June 2023	2	^(June)([ ][0-9][0-9][0-9][0-9])$	Full month name and year of Assessment series for example June 2023
AwardingOrganisation	Acronym of the awarding organisation	3	^.{1,100}$	A valid AO Acronym. 1 to 100 characters accepted Note: value must be consistent within the file.
QualificationNumber	Unique identifier for the TQ as it appears in Ofqual’s Register of Regulated qualifications	4	^.{1,10}$	Valid Qualification Number. 1 to 10 characters accepted
BoundaryType	Which level of aggregation the boundary relates to	5	^(Component|Sub-component|Assessment)$	Accepted values: • Component • Sub-component • Assessment
ComponentCode	Unique identifier for the component which the assessment relates to (assigned by the awarding organisation)	6	^.{1,10}$	1 to 10 characters
SubComponentType	TQ sub-component which the assessment falls under (Core ExamCore ProjectOccupational Specialism)	7	^(Core Exam|Core Project|Occupational Specialism|-2)$	Accepted values: • Core Exam • Core Project • Occupational Specialism Note: enter -2 for component level boundaries
AssessmentCode	Unique identifier for the assessment (assigned by the awarding organisation)	8	^.{1,10}$	1 to 10 characters Note: enter -2 for sub-component or component level boundaries
Grade	Grade for which the boundary applies (see boundary type)	9	^(A*|A|B|C|D|E|Q|U|X|Distinction|Merit|Pass|-2)$	Accepted values: • A* • A • B • C • D • E • Q • U • X • Distinction • Merit • Pass • -2
RawMarkGradeBoundary	Raw mark grade boundary	10	^\d{1,3}$	Integer between 0 and 999 Note: enter -2 for UMS boundaries
UMSGradeBoundary	UMS grade boundary	11	^\d{1,3}$	Integer between 0 and 999 Note: enter -2 for raw mark boundaries

Contacts

For all queries relating to the data collection process, amendments to data previously provided, or for general guidance. please contact:

Data services

Ofqual
2nd floor, 1 Friargate
Station Square
Coventry
CV1 2GN

Email Data.Services@ofqual.gov.uk