We aim to facilitate open access for learners who are eligible for reasonable adjustment and/or special consideration in assessments, without compromising the assessment of the skills, knowledge, understanding or competence being measured.
A reasonable adjustment helps to reduce the effect of a disability or difficulty that places the learner at a substantial disadvantage in the assessment situation. Reasonable adjustments must not affect the validity or reliability of assessment outcomes, but may involve:
- changing usual assessment arrangements
- adapting assessment materials
- providing assistance during assessment
- re-organising the assessment physical environment
- changing or adapting the assessment method
- using assistive technology
Reasonable adjustments must be approved and set in place before the assessment. It is an arrangement to give a learner access to a qualification. The work produced following a reasonable adjustment will be assessed in the same way as the work from other learners.
Special considerations involve a post-assessment allowance to reflect temporary illness, injury or indisposition that occurred at the time of assessment. Any special consideration granted cannot remove the difficulty the learner faced at the time of assessment and can only be a relatively small adjustment to make sure that the integrity of the assessment is not compromised.
A special consideration is given following a period of assessment for a learner who:
- was prepared for and present at an assessment but who may have been disadvantaged by temporary illness, injury or adverse circumstances that have arisen at or near to the time of assessment
- misses part of the assessment due to circumstances outside their control
Our decision will be based on various factors, which may vary from learner to learner, and from one subject to another.
These factors may include the severity of the circumstances, the date of the assessment and the nature of the assessment.
The following are examples of circumstances, which might be eligible for special consideration:
- terminal illness of the learner
- terminal illness of a parent
- recent bereavement of a member of the immediate family
- serious and disruptive domestic crises leading to acute anxiety about the family
- incapacitating illness of the learner
- severe car accident
- recent traumatic experience such as death of a close friend or distant relative
- flare-up of severe congenital conditions such as epilepsy, diabetes, severe asthmatic attack
- recent domestic crisis
- recent physical assault trauma
- broken limb on the mend