Skip to main content
JuniperLogo

KS5: Discounting Overview

  • Updated

When a student sits two or more qualifications sharing identical official discount codes, the school will be able to claim the credit for one of those grades, although all would count for the student. This guide aims to explain how this discounting is applied in KS5.

Discounting Guidance

Discounting in KS5 is based on discounting principles outlined in the DfE’s 16 to 18 Discounting Guidance, which states the following:

“When two (or more) level 3 qualifications are known to have the same discount code and
belong to the same discounting family, the following principles are applied to determine
which one(s) is(are) discounted.

  1. Where a student has entered qualifications of different sizes and passed the larger qualification, the larger qualification is counted since it incorporates the smaller (e.g. has modules or units in common). The smaller qualification is not counted (even if the larger qualification has less points). For example, where a student has gained as AS en route to an A Level, in the same subject, only the A level result will count.

  2. Where a student has failed to pass a larger qualification but passed a smaller qualification, passes in the smaller qualifications will be selected for point scores, while the size of the larger qualification will be selected for the size of the entry. For example, if a student gained an AS level but fails to obtain a pass grade at A level, the points score for the AS level would be selected as the point score for the subject, while the size of entry to the subject would be equivalent to one A level.

  3. Where a student has more than one qualification of the same size, credit will be given to the one with the highest point score.

  4. If there are still two or more qualifications that could be counted one is selected randomly; however, please also see paragraph Discounting for A level cohort indicators.

Discounting for A level cohort indicators

For the introduction of a new group of A level-only cohort indicators in the 2012 16 to 18 performance tables, a new discounting approach was introduced to avoid a Pre-U discounting an A level result. Qualification discounting normally takes place within the same subject area and within the same family of qualifications. As A levels are in the same discounting family as the Pre-U qualification, it would have been possible for a Pre-U to discount an A level. The new discounting method prevents this.”

Taken from the DfE's Discounting Guidance, linked here - KS5 - DfE's 16 to 18 Qualifications, Discount Codes and Point scores.

Matching Page

Discounting will be applied automatically in Analytics, based on your Matching page setup in DATA > select KS5 & cohort > GRADES > Matching. 

mceclip0.png

This page can be completed by entering the QN codes for the qualifications your students take and matching them to the official DfE qualification.

Analytics can use this information to identify how your qualification should count, and will display the official discount code in italics below, next to the performance cohort. This information (alongside discounting families) is taken from the DfE’s Qualifications and Discount Codes spreadsheet, in the article linked earlier.

Any qualifications that share identical discount codes and are within the same discounting family outlined by the DfE, will have best grade discounting applied. This means that if one student is taking two or more qualifications sharing identical official discount codes, the school can only take credit for one of those grades in the performance tables and that would be the best grade.

This will be decided by Analytics based on the points and entries the grades uploaded for a student are worth. For example, if you have some students taking AS qualification worth 0.5 entry such as AS Maths and then taking A2 Maths worth 1 full entry, the AS grade will be discounted and the A2 grade will count in the Headlines (unless they failed the A2). Please note, sub grades will also be taken into account when applying best grade discounting.

Reports

If a student takes 2 or more qualifications that discount one another, the discounted grades will be flagged with a discounting icon in the Student Detail Reports. The icon will be flagged on school-based performance reports, which in this case is the Headlines Summary view. This is to indicate that this grade will not be counting in the school’s performance measures.

mceclip1.png

 

Thanks for reading.

Related articles