Guidance

PTQ Outcomes: Qualification Maximum Marks and Grade Boundaries

Updated 4 August 2023

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?

Data should relate only to vocational and technical qualifications (VTQs) that are included in the Department for Education’s performance tables (PTQs) for the academic year being submitted. More specifically, these are: Technical Awards, Applied Generals, Technical Certificates and Technical 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 webpage 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 by emailing data.services@ofqual.gov.uk, 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 emailing data.services@ofqual.gov.uk. 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

• This template is designed to capture data on maximum marks, grades and grade boundaries set at qualification level.

• Where grades are issued in the absence of marks and grade boundaries, please still submit a row for each grade. -2 can be used for the boundary and/or maximum mark fields as appropriate. Submitting a row for each grade is useful as it allows us to determine the qualification’s grade scale.

• The MaxMarkAndBoundaryID field would be a unique code for a particular set of qualification grade boundaries and maximum mark information, intended to act as a linking field between the outcomes and maximum marks/grade boundaries templates. For example, for series-based qualifications it could be the name of the series, or for on-demand qualifications a unique code specific to that version of the assessments taken. ‘-2’ would be accepted for qualifications where the boundaries and maximum marks don’t change throughout the academic year.

• The MaxMarkAndBoundaryID in this template is cross validated against MaxMarkAndBoundaryID in qualification outcomes template.

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
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	^(20)\d\d[-](0[1-9]|1[012])[-](0[1-9]|[12][0-9]|3[01])$	The date in the following format: year (4 digits), a dash, month (2 digits), a dash, day (2 digits)
AcademicYear	The academic year which this data submission relates to (defined as 1 September to 31 August). For example, “2021-2022”.	2	^(20)\d\d[-](20)\d\d $	The academic year in the following format: start year (4 digits), a dash, end year (4 digits) Format accepted yyyy-yyyy
AwardingOrganisation	Name of the awarding organisation	3	^.{1,100}$	1 to 100 characters accepted
QualificationNumber	This should be the unique identifier for the qualification as it appears in Ofqual’s Register of Regulated qualifications, e.g. 123/1234/1	4	^.{1,10}$	Valid Qualification Number. 1 to 10 characters accepted.
MaxMarkAndBoundaryID	Identifier used to link information between the outcomes and grade boundaries templates. Where grade boundaries and/or maximum marks change for this qualification number, please use a common value for this field in both the qualification outcomes and qualification grade boundaries templates. This could be based on the series name or assessment test versions, for example -2 accepted where boundaries and maximum marks information do not change throughout the academic year	5	^.{1,50}$	1 to 50 characters accepted
MaximumRawMark	Maximum aggregated raw mark for the qualification. By raw mark, we mean the summed number of marks available to a learner without any weighting, scaling or other conversion applied. -2 accepted for not applicable	6	^\d{1,3}$	Three-digit integer. -2 accepted where not applicable
MaximumScaledScore	Maximum scaled mark/score for the qualification, where used. This would include any numerical score applied to the qualification that would not be considered a raw mark (see definition above) or a ‘grade’. This can include, for example, percentage scores, Uniform Mark Scale (UMS) marks or Grade Points or Grade Credits -2 accepted for not applicable	7	^\d{1,3}$	Three-digit integer. -2 accepted where not applicable
Grade	The grade the boundary relates to (e.g., “A”, “Merit”, “DD*”)	8	See Annex A	See Annex A for accepted grades
RawMarkGradeBoundary	Raw mark grade boundary for that grade. See the definition in Field 6 above. -2 accepted for not applicable	9	^\d{1,3}$	Three-digit integer. -2 accepted for not applicable
ScaledScoreGradeBoundary	Scaled score grade boundary for that grade. See the definition in Field 7 above. -2 accepted for not applicable	10	^\d{1,3}$	Three-digit integer. -2 accepted for not applicable.

Annex A – Accepted Grade Values

The following are grades accepted for this collection. Please let us know via the Portal as soon as possible if any grades appear to be missing from this list. You will not be able to submit any grades which are not on this list without informing us first.

FAIL

-2, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9

*, A*, A, B, C, D*, D, E, F, G, J, K, M, N, P, Q, U, X

AC1, C1, E1, E2, E3

D1, D2, D3, D4, D5, D6, M1, M2, M3, P1, P2, P3

**, *1, *2, *D, D*D*, D*D, DD, DM, HM, LM, HP, LP, MD, MM, MP, PM, PP

***, D*D*D* , **D, D*D*D, D**, DD*D*, *DD, D*DD, DD*, DDD*, DD*D, DDD, DDM, DMM, MDD, MMD, MMM, MMP, MPP, PMM, PPM, PPP

24B, 25B, 26B, 27B, 28B, 29B, 30B, 31B, 32B, 33B, 34B, 35B, 36B, 37B, 38B, 39B, 40B, 41B, 42B, 43B, 44B, 45B

24D, 25D, 26D, 27D, 28D, 29D, 30D, 31D, 32D, 33D, 34D, 35D, 36D, 37D, 38D, 39D, 40D, 41D, 42D, 43D, 44D, 45D

24F, 25F, 26F, 27F, 28F, 29F, 30F, 31F, 32F, 33F, 34F, 35F, 36F, 37F, 38F, 39F, 40F, 41F, 42F, 43F, 44F, 45F

If you have any of the following grades please convert them to the allowed values listed.

Grade	Allowed Value		Grade	Allowed Value		Grade	Allowed Value
Distinction	D		High Merit	HM		High Pass	HP
Distinction*	D*		Merit	M		Pass	P
L1D*	*1		Low Merit	LM		Low Pass	LP
L1 Distinction*	*1		Merit 1	M1		Pass 1	P1
L2D*	*2		Merit L1	M1		Pass 2	P2
Distinction* L2	*2		L1 Merit	M1		Pass 3	P3
L2 Distinction*	*2		L1M	M1		Pass L1	P1
Distinction 1	D1		Merit 2	M2		L1 Pass	P1
Distinction L1	D1		L2M	M2		L1P	P1
L1 Distinction	D1		Merit L2	M2		L2P	P2
L1D	D1		L2 Merit	M2		Pass L2	P2
L2D	D2		Merit 3	M3		L2 Pass	P2
Distinction L2	D2		L1 Adv. Credit	AC1		Entry 1	E1
L2 Distinction	D2		L1 Credit	C1		Entry 2	E2
Distinction 2	D2					Entry 3	E3
Distinction 3	D3					Unclassified	U
						Queried/pending	Q
						Disqualified	X

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