EXAMS ISSUES
Examinations Officer Resources
A new area due to a new role of mine for 2003-4, as the school's Examinations Officer. Thankfully that was JUST for 2003-4. This is a bit of a never-ending job, and requires real administrative flair. So why I'm doing it I don't know.... just kidding. To all those Exams Officers out there who come across this site - good luck in the forthcoming exam season (because there's ALWAYS an exam season round the corner...)
Of course the first port of call is likely to be the websites of the EXAM boards.
WJEC
These are the 4 that I have dealings with, but there are others, including the Northern Ireland board.
An excellent site is the EXAMS OFFICERS ASSOCIATION site. This is run by Uday Patel, and has excellent sections on the following things:
Questions and Answers, CAPITA Info and LINKS
One of the most useful parts of the site is a JOB DESCRIPTION and sample EXAMS POLICY.
The Exam boards are slowly improving their websites to be more useful to Exams officers and other members of staff.
AQA, as well as the other boards, hold NETWORK meetings for local areas. Some of these come up with some very useful ideas, based on the experiences of existing Exams Officers.
A recent one held in my area came up with some useful advice for Exams Officers.
EDEXCEL ONLINE is a site specifically for Exams Officers. You'll need a User ID and password which will then allow you to track entries and do lots of other exciting Exams Officer things.
The other exam boards are now coming on board with the idea of ONLINE SUPPORT: this includes the opportunity to track entries and other aspects of the process.
If you're an exams officer you'll need to also REGISTER for these:
e-AQA
and
OCR INTERCHANGE
All the exam boards are now working on what is called CONVERGENCE. This means that there are going to be more common forms which will save a lot of time. They have already achieved this with some aspects of the process, but not with others.
Examinations come under the banner of the JCGQ (Joint Council for General Qualifications). The JCGQ website has PDF downloads of all the main documents that you will require to ensure that you are au fait with the process. In particular you need to have the SPECIAL CONSIDERATIONS booklet. I would recommend that this is checked out fairly early in the process.
There are some reports on the results of appeals heard by the EXAMINATIONS APPEALS BOARD which you may find interesting.
POSSIBLE ROLES / RESPONSIBILITIES
See Uday Patel's SPECIFICATION listed above for a selection of appropriate tasks. This would be a useful JOB DESCRIPTION to check out if you are applying for a job as an Exams officer.
The EDEXCEL EXAMZONE site is now available - aimed at pupils and parents.
I would also recommend checking out the excellent BREAKING THE ICE section of the EDEXCEL website.