KS5: Matching - Unapproved Qualifications / QNs not available (Admin)

If your qualification is not listed in the QN/Qual Title column when searching on the KS5 Matching page, this suggests it was made unapproved by the DfE prior to 2018, and so would not count towards school performance measures.

Checking if your qualification is unapproved

You can double check this using the DfE’s 16 to 19 Qualifications and Discount Codes spreadsheet - KS5 - DfE's 16 to 18 Qualifications, Discount Codes and Point scores.

If your qualification is not listed on the tab for the year your students are reported on, this means it will not count towards the headline figures for that cohort. For example, if you’re working with 23/24 Leavers, you would need to search in the ‘2024’ tab of the spreadsheet.

Matching unapproved qualifications

If your qualification is unapproved and the QN code does not bring back a qualification to select, you can search for “Unapproved” in the QN/Qual Title column and select the appropriate option based on the type of qualification (explained further below).

This ensures that the qualification is available when analysing student performance (such as qualification and class analysis) once the reports are published, but does not contribute towards headline figures, such as Value Added, etc.

If you want your unapproved qualification to count towards points-based internal analysis in the reports, such as Average Points, you can use one of the following options:

• Unapproved A Level, Academic, Applied General, Tech Level: For unapproved Level 3 qualifications of that type, using a L3 grading structure. These qualifications appear in the ‘Level 3’ performance level in the reports and count towards the associated ‘Qualification Type’ filters.
  
  
• Unapproved Graded Tech Cert: For unapproved Level 1/2 Technical Certificate qualifications, using a L2 grading structure. These qualifications appear in the ‘Tech Cert’ performance level in the reports
  
  
• Unapproved Pass/Fail Tech Cert: For unapproved Level 1/2 Technical Certificates using a L2 Pass/Fail grading structure. These qualifications appear in the ‘Tech Cert’ performance level in the reports.
  
  
• Unapproved GCSE/Other: For unapproved GCSE or other qualifications, using an Entry Level, L1 or L2 grading structure. These qualifications appear in the ‘GCSE / Other’ performance level in the reports.
  
  
• Unapproved L3: For unapproved Level 3 qualifications, using a L3 grading structure. These qualifications will appear in the ‘Level 3’ performance level in the reports, but would not be included when using the ‘Qualification Type’ filter in the reports.

If you want to exclude your unapproved qualification from points-based analysis in the reports, for example if this hasn’t been reported on by the DfE and you have set up a similar grading structure for this or selected a different size, you can use one of the following:

• Unapproved L3 (No Points), Tech Cert (No Points), GCSE/Other (No Points): Accepts any grading structure. These will count towards the ‘Not Included’ column in the Grade Analysis > Grade Summary report view when selecting an alternative ‘Display Grades As’ option than ‘Actual Grades’, allowing for grades-based analysis only. They would also be excluded from the DfE Equivalent, L2 Tech Cert and Challenge Points Bands columns in the Grade List view.

Thanks for reading!