If you are creating an EAP for a qualification not officially awarded points, you can select a grade method without points across each year between Y7 and Y11. However, you will need to select a grade method using Attainment 8 points for the ‘Final Exam Grades’ term. These are 2 options you can use for this:
Option 1 / Enter points to 3 decimal places
When creating a Grade Method that uses Attainment 8 points, at least one grade must carry points. Therefore, you could give one grade the points ‘0.001’, and as points are displayed to 2 decimal places in the reports, the actual points will display as 0.
Option 2 / Include a ‘dummy’ grade in your method containing points
The other option would be to include a grade in your method that won’t be used but does have points. For example, below we have added an N/A grade and given this 1 point. This grade won’t be uploaded for any students, but it will appear as a column in the ‘Overview’ reports.
You will then be able to create an EAP that makes use of either of these options. Please see the article liked here for more information on creating EAPs.
Matching Page
Once the Grade Method and the EAP are ready, the Matching page can be completed. It is crucial that the KS4 MEASURE column of the Matching page is set to Unapproved, either by setting this manually, or by mapping this to an Unapproved option in the QN Title column if you wish to use Data Collaboration features. The example below shows an Entry Level English qualification, which in the QN Title column 'Unapproved English Language' has been entered in place of a QN code.
This will ensure that the student ‘entries’ for these qualifications will not count towards school performance, in line with DfE guidance. An example of Entry Level English is shown below:
Residual Exclusion – These qualifications will impact your residuals. However, you can use the Residual Exclusion option in the reports to view residuals without these qualifications included:
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