Changes to qualification
performance information
Details
QiW is an online database
owned and managed by Qualifications Wales. It contains details of
all qualifications that are approved or designated for teaching
in Wales for learners aged under 19, excluding higher education.
It also hosts performance (in terms of school performance
measures) and curriculum information for those qualifications up
to and including Level 3, which is maintained by the Welsh
Government.
Updates are made to QiW throughout the year and may have an
impact on school performance information for certain
qualifications. This is mainly due to awarding organisations
making changes to their qualifications or, in other
circumstances, due to manual changes by the Welsh Government
where performance information has generated in error.
The majority of changes extend or bring forward the Certification
End Date (CED) of a qualification resulting in the qualification
either being able to count towards applicable performance
measures in additional reporting years (for extensions), or in
fewer reporting years (for those brought forward).
Other changes by awarding organisations, such as those to the
Guided Learning Hours (GLH), Level, Grading Scale or Age Range of
a qualification, can have a direct impact on the contributing
values of a qualification towards relevant performance measures.
In these cases, the performance values must be updated on QiW to
maintain the accuracy, quality and fairness of the school
performance measurement system in Wales.
However, where this results in a notable reduction to performance
values, Welsh Government policy is to allow a grace period before
the performance values are reduced on QiW. This ensures that
schools are not unfairly disadvantaged where pupils have already
started a course before the relevant change was made.
The grace period is proportionate to the time it is expected to
take to teach the course based on its size equivalence to a GCSE
(for Level 2 qualifications) or to an A level (for Level 3
qualifications). For example, the grace period for a
qualification equivalent to 0.5 of a GCSE would be one year.
A list of qualifications pending a reduction to performance
values can be found in the table, along with the relevant
reporting year from which the change will take place. For more
details about the individual changes, please view the
‘Performance and Curriculum Information’ section for the
qualification on QiW, drilling down into the relevant reporting
year.
