NEA, CONTROLLED ASSESSMENT AND COURSEWORK POLICY

SV Academy - 6 Eltham High Street, London SE9 1DA

Policy owner: Headteacher / Examinations Officer / Quality Assurance Lead
Strategic oversight: Executive Headteacher
Approved by: Executive Headteacher / Head of Centre
Operational leads: Headteacher, Examinations Officer, Quality Assurance Lead, SENCO / Access Arrangements Coordinator and Subject Leaders
Applies to: All learners and staff involved in coursework, non-examination assessment, controlled assessment, portfolios and centre-assessed work
Version: 2.0 - September 2026
Last reviewed: September 2026
Next review: September 2027, or earlier if JCQ, awarding organisation, qualification or regulatory requirements change

1. Statement of Intent

SV Academy is committed to managing all non-examination assessments, coursework, portfolios and any remaining controlled-assessment components fairly, securely and consistently. The Academy will protect the integrity of qualifications while ensuring that learners understand the rules, receive appropriate support and have equitable access to assessment.

The term controlled assessment is retained in this policy because some qualifications and awarding-body documentation may still use it. For most current GCSE and GCE qualifications, the broader term non-examination assessment (NEA) is now used. Where qualification-specific rules differ from this policy, the current specification, awarding-organisation instructions and applicable JCQ regulations take precedence.

This policy replaces the Academy's previous Controlled Assessment Policy and should be read with the Access to Fair Assessment Policy, Assessment Appeals and Procedure Policy, Examinations Policy, Internal Verification / Quality Assurance procedures, Malpractice and Plagiarism Policy, SEND Policy, Data Protection Policy and Acceptable Use of Technology, AI, Online Safety and Cyber Security Policy.

2. Scope and Terminology

This policy applies to centre-assessed work undertaken by SV Academy learners in compulsory school-age and Post-16 provision, including GCSE/GCE NEA, BTEC and other vocational or technical internal assessments, coursework, portfolios, practical evidence, projects and controlled-assessment components where these continue to apply.

It applies whether work is produced on paper, digitally, through practical performance, audio, video, artefacts or other evidence. It also applies where SV Academy enters learners for qualifications delivered in partnership with another provider, subject to the written responsibilities agreed with the entering or awarding centre.

For the purposes of this policy:

NEA means assessment that is not a conventional timetabled written examination and may be internally or externally marked, depending on the qualification.
Centre-assessed work means work assessed by SV Academy staff before moderation, standards verification or other external quality assurance.
Controlled assessment means a form of assessment delivered under specified controls where that terminology remains applicable to a qualification.
Coursework and portfolio evidence are managed under the current rules of the relevant awarding organisation and specification.

3. Regulatory and Awarding-Organisation Framework

SV Academy will use the current requirements that apply to the relevant academic year and qualification, including where applicable:

JCQ General Regulations for Approved Centres, effective for the current examination year.
JCQ Instructions for Conducting Non-Examination Assessments for GCE and GCSE specifications.
JCQ Information for Candidates - Non-Examination Assessments and Coursework Assessments.
JCQ Access Arrangements and Reasonable Adjustments requirements.
JCQ malpractice, plagiarism, AI-use, social-media and candidate-information requirements.
Current awarding-organisation specifications, administrative guides, assessment briefs, submission deadlines and moderation requirements.
For BTEC qualifications, the current Pearson BTEC Centre Guides to Internal Assessment, Quality Assurance, Internal Verification and Lead Internal Verifier requirements.

Where SV Academy is an approved examination or assessment centre, the person formally registered as Head of Centre retains the regulatory accountability assigned to that role. The Executive Headteacher and Headteacher leadership structure does not override duties that JCQ or an awarding organisation assigns specifically to the Head of Centre.

4. Core Principles

PrincipleSV Academy standardValidity | Assessment must measure the knowledge, skills and understanding specified by the qualification.
Authenticity | The Academy must be satisfied that the work submitted is the learner's own, except where collaboration is expressly permitted.
Security | Live assessment materials, learner work, marks and evidence must be protected from unauthorised access, sharing, loss or alteration.
Consistency | Assessors must use the published criteria consistently and internal standardisation must take place where required.
Fairness | Learners must receive clear instructions, appropriate access arrangements and equivalent opportunities to demonstrate achievement.
Traceability | Assessment, supervision, assistance, authentication, marking, standardisation and submission records must be sufficient to demonstrate compliance.

5. Roles and Responsibilities

5.1 Executive Headteacher

Provide strategic oversight of assessment integrity, compliance and quality assurance across SV Academy.
Ensure significant risks, awarding-organisation concerns, malpractice trends or systemic weaknesses are addressed and resourced appropriately.
Ensure this policy is reviewed annually by senior leadership and communicated within the Academy.

5.2 Headteacher

Lead day-to-day implementation of this policy and ensure that assessment arrangements are workable, consistent and appropriately staffed.
Ensure subject leaders, assessors and support staff understand the current requirements for the qualifications they deliver.
Ensure concerns are escalated promptly to the Head of Centre, Executive Headteacher or awarding organisation where required.

5.3 Head of Centre

Retain the specific accountability assigned by JCQ and awarding organisations, including annual declarations and malpractice reporting where required.
Ensure the centre has an up-to-date NEA policy, appropriate resources and effective systems to maintain assessment integrity.
Ensure any conflicts of interest are declared to the relevant awarding organisation within required timescales.

5.4 Examinations Officer

Maintain current JCQ and awarding-organisation documentation, key dates and administrative requirements.
Coordinate entries, mark submission, moderation samples, secure dispatch or upload and relevant post-results processes.
Keep records of submissions and work with subject staff to ensure deadlines are met.

5.5 Quality Assurance Lead / Internal Quality Assurer

Coordinate internal standardisation, verification or sampling arrangements appropriate to each qualification.
Ensure corrective actions arising from internal or external quality assurance are completed and evidenced.
Support review of centre-assessed marks by a suitably competent person with no previous involvement where required.

5.6 Subject Leaders and Teachers / Assessors

Use the correct current task, specification, assessment criteria and awarding-organisation instructions.
Brief learners on the assessment conditions, permitted resources, deadlines, referencing, confidentiality and AI rules before work begins.
Provide only the assistance and feedback permitted by the relevant specification and record any assistance that must be taken into account.
Supervise sufficiently to authenticate work, mark accurately, annotate where required, complete authentication documentation and participate in standardisation.

5.7 SENCO / Access Arrangements Coordinator

Coordinate access arrangements and reasonable adjustments in accordance with current JCQ or awarding-organisation requirements.
Ensure relevant evidence, approvals and normal-way-of-working requirements are in place before assessment where required.

5.8 IT Lead / IT Support

Provide secure, reliable technology for digital assessment and storage, including appropriate access controls and backups.
Support restriction of internet, communications, AI tools or other functionality where assessment conditions require this.

5.9 Learners

Follow the assessment conditions and deadlines explained by staff.
Submit their own work, acknowledge all sources and any permitted AI use, and keep assessed work confidential.
Sign authentication declarations only after the work is complete and when the declaration is true.

6. Planning and Managing Assessment

At the start of each course or assessment cycle, the responsible subject team will identify the assessment components, current tasks, assessment windows, internal deadlines, supervision conditions, access-arrangement needs, authentication requirements, marking arrangements, internal standardisation and external submission or moderation deadlines.

Internal deadlines must allow sufficient contingency time for absence, access needs, internal standardisation, candidate reviews of centre-assessed marks and any required corrections before the awarding organisation deadline. Missing an awarding-body deadline can place learners' results at risk and may be treated as malpractice.

Only current assessment tasks and current documentation may be used where the awarding organisation supplies them.
Tasks and approaches must be checked for suitability, ethical considerations and safeguarding implications before use.
Where assessment is delivered with another centre or provider, responsibilities for task setting, supervision, authentication, marking, internal verification, submission and retention must be clear in writing.

7. Task Setting and Issuing of Tasks

Teachers must check the relevant specification and awarding-organisation website for the correct task, release date and permitted contextualisation. Centre-set tasks must meet all requirements of the specification and must not reduce or alter the skills or assessment objectives being assessed.

Live assessment materials must not be disclosed early or shared beyond those who need access.
If the wrong task is issued, the Examinations Officer and Head of Centre must be informed immediately so that the awarding organisation can be contacted and corrective action taken.
Exemplar materials may be used only in accordance with awarding-organisation rules. Live tasks or current candidates' work must not be posted publicly or shared as exemplars.

8. Task Taking, Supervision and Conditions

The level of supervision and permitted resources varies by qualification and component. Staff must follow the exact specification rather than apply a single Academy-wide level of control to every task.

As a general JCQ principle, the Academy must provide sufficient supervision to authenticate the work. Some NEA may be completed with access to resources or outside the centre; other components require formally supervised sessions with tightly controlled resources and no internet access.

8.1 Formally supervised sessions

Candidates will be supervised in accordance with the awarding-organisation requirements for the component.
Permitted notes, resources and equipment will be restricted to those allowed by the specification.
Internet access, personal devices, communication tools and AI services will be disabled or prohibited where required.
Work produced over more than one formal session will be stored securely between sessions.
A record of attendance, supervision and any incidents will be maintained where required.

8.2 Work completed with less direct supervision

Teachers must still know the learner's work well enough to authenticate it.
Where group work is permitted, the assessable contribution of each learner must be identifiable and individually assessed.
Work completed away from the centre will only be accepted where the qualification permits this and the Academy can be satisfied as to authenticity.

9. Advice, Feedback and Assistance

Before an assessment begins, teachers may explain the assessment requirements, criteria, research approaches, relevant skills, health and safety, ethical considerations and how work should be kept secure. Candidate-friendly versions of marking criteria may be used where they remain generic and do not tell an individual learner how to complete the task.

During task taking, staff may provide the level of feedback permitted by the specification. General advice may be allowed, but staff must not provide model answers, task-specific writing frames or prohibited detailed guidance. Where assistance beyond general advice is permitted but must be recorded, staff will record it and ensure it is taken into account in marking or reported to the external assessor as required.

Teachers must not provisionally mark work and then allow a candidate to revise it unless the qualification rules specifically permit that process.

10. Resources, Referencing and Artificial Intelligence

Learners must acknowledge all sources used in assessed work, including books, websites, media, assistance from other people and AI tools where permitted. Use of a source does not make copied or generated content the learner's own work.

Where current JCQ rules permit AI use in research or preparation, learners must follow the JCQ and awarding-organisation requirements in force for the assessment. This may include identifying the AI tool, recording the date of use, retaining the prompts and AI output in a non-editable form, explaining how the output was used and acknowledging underlying sources.

AI-generated content must not be submitted as if it were independently produced by the learner.
AI use is prohibited where the assessment conditions or awarding organisation prohibit it.
Staff must not use AI as the sole means of marking centre-assessed work; the assessor remains responsible for reviewing the work and determining the final mark.
Personal, confidential or safeguarding information must not be entered into unapproved public AI systems.

11. Authentication and Academic Integrity

Authentication is a continuous process, not simply a signature at the end. Teachers must take reasonable steps during the course to know the learner's work, monitor progress and identify concerns about plagiarism, collusion, third-party assistance or AI misuse.

Candidates must complete the required declaration of authentication only after the work is complete. Teachers or assessors must also authenticate the work in the form required by the awarding organisation. Electronic signatures or typed names may be accepted where current rules permit.

If work cannot be authenticated, it must not be accepted as authentic evidence. Under current JCQ NEA rules, work that cannot be authenticated receives zero marks, and suspected malpractice may also require reporting to the awarding organisation.

11.1 Suspected malpractice

Concerns identified before the candidate signs the authentication declaration will normally be addressed under the Academy's internal malpractice procedures, except where the rules require immediate reporting, such as a breach of controlled conditions or confidential materials.
Where suspected malpractice is identified after the authentication declaration has been signed, the Head of Centre will report it to the relevant awarding organisation where required.
Staff must report suspected assessment malpractice; failure to report a known or suspected breach may itself constitute malpractice.

12. Access Arrangements and Reasonable Adjustments

Access arrangements will be planned and implemented in accordance with current JCQ or awarding-organisation requirements. Arrangements must support access without changing the competence standard or giving an unfair advantage.

The SENCO / Access Arrangements Coordinator will identify needs and maintain the required evidence and approvals.
Where an arrangement must reflect the learner's normal way of working, it will be established through teaching and internal assessment as required.
Subject staff must notify the SENCO early enough for arrangements, evidence, support staff and rooming to be organised before the assessment.
Any reader, scribe, practical assistant, prompter, communication professional or other support role must act within the current regulations and must not give prohibited assistance.

13. Marking and Annotation

Assessors will mark only against the current published assessment criteria and will follow the awarding organisation's instructions on annotation, use of mark schemes and recording of marks. Annotation should show clearly how and why credit has been awarded where the qualification requires or permits this.

Where group work is permitted, marks must reflect each individual learner's assessable contribution.
Any additional assistance that must be taken into account will be recorded and reflected in marking in accordance with the specification.
If a learner submits no work, the learner will be recorded as absent where the awarding-organisation rules require this rather than automatically awarded zero.
Very limited work will be assessed against the criteria; zero is awarded only where no credit is merited or where the rules require it.

14. Internal Standardisation and Quality Assurance

All assessors marking the same component must work to a common standard. Internal standardisation or verification will be completed before marks are submitted where required.

Relevant exemplar and standardisation materials will be obtained early enough to support consistent assessment.
Assessors will participate in trial marking, cross-marking or other standardisation activity where appropriate.
Any marking discrepancies will be resolved and final adjustments completed before marks are submitted.
Evidence of internal standardisation, sampling and corrective actions will be retained in accordance with awarding-organisation requirements.
For BTEC and other vocational qualifications, the Academy will follow the current awarding organisation's internal verification, Lead Internal Verifier and quality assurance requirements, including any current digital assessment-planning processes.

15. Informing Learners of Centre-Assessed Marks and Review of Marking

Before centre-assessed marks are submitted to an awarding organisation, learners will be informed of their marks where the applicable rules require this and will be given an opportunity to request a review of the centre's marking.

The Academy will publish an internal deadline for requesting a review that leaves sufficient time for the review, any required mark changes and notification of the outcome before the awarding-organisation submission deadline.

A review will be undertaken by an assessor with appropriate competence who had no previous involvement in marking that learner's work for the component and has no personal interest in the outcome.
The reviewer will consider whether the original mark is consistent with the centre's standard and the published criteria.
Learners will be reminded that centre-assessed marks may change through external moderation or standards verification.

16. Submission, Moderation and External Quality Assurance

The Examinations Officer and relevant subject staff will follow the awarding organisation's instructions for mark submission, candidate samples, supporting documentation, secure upload or dispatch and deadlines.

Marks for all candidates will be checked for addition and transcription errors before submission.
The centre will keep a record of candidates included in moderation or verification samples where required.
Where a moderator, standards verifier or awarding organisation requests additional work or evidence, it will be supplied promptly and securely.
External feedback will be reviewed by the Quality Assurance Lead and subject team, with actions recorded and followed through before the next assessment cycle.

17. Security, Storage, Retention and Backups

Live NEA materials and candidates' work must remain secure and confidential while in the Academy's possession. Candidates' current assessed work must not be shared with other candidates or posted publicly.

Paper-based work will be stored in a locked cabinet, cupboard or other secure location appropriate to the material.
Digital work will be stored on approved Academy systems with access restricted to authorised users and appropriate cyber-security controls.
Digital candidate work will be backed up regularly. For significant assessed work, the Academy will maintain resilient backups, including a separate or off-site backup where appropriate.
Marked work will be retained securely until the applicable review-of-results / moderation deadline has passed and any appeal, malpractice investigation or other results enquiry is complete, whichever is later.
Sensitive digital media should be encrypted where appropriate and permitted by the awarding organisation.

18. Loss, Damage or Corruption of Work

Learners and staff must report loss, damage, corruption or unauthorised alteration of assessed work immediately. The Academy will investigate what happened, attempt recovery from backups and follow the relevant awarding-organisation process for lost or damaged centre-assessed work.

Where circumstances are outside the learner's control, the Academy will seek to protect the learner's interests within the limits of the qualification rules. No assurance will be given that marks can be awarded where required evidence is unavailable.

19. Conflicts of Interest

SV Academy will make every reasonable effort to avoid a learner being assessed by a person with whom they have a close personal relationship. Where this cannot be avoided, the Head of Centre and Examinations Officer must be informed and the conflict declared to the relevant awarding organisation by the required deadline. The learner's work will be subject to the additional arrangements required by the awarding organisation.

20. Consortium, Partner and Off-Site Arrangements

Where learners are taught or assessed jointly with another centre or external provider, SV Academy will ensure that the entering centre and delivery partner understand who is responsible for each part of assessment administration. Consortium arrangements will be notified through the relevant awarding-organisation process where required.

Where SV Academy makes the examination entry, it remains responsible for ensuring that supervision, authentication, marking and administration meet the applicable rules, even where some teaching or assessment activity takes place elsewhere.

21. Appeals, Complaints and Post-Results Services

Learners may challenge assessment decisions through the Academy's Assessment Appeals and Procedure Policy. The internal review of centre-assessed marks described in section 15 must be completed before marks are submitted to the awarding organisation.

Following results, any review of moderation, appeal or other post-results service will be considered in accordance with current awarding-organisation and JCQ rules. A review of moderation applies to the centre's moderation outcome and is not an individual candidate re-mark.

22. Monitoring and Review

The Headteacher, Examinations Officer and Quality Assurance Lead will monitor day-to-day compliance with this policy. The Executive Headteacher will maintain strategic oversight of significant assessment risks, malpractice concerns, quality assurance findings and awarding-organisation feedback. Where regulatory accountability sits specifically with the Head of Centre, that responsibility remains with the Head of Centre.

This policy will be reviewed at least annually and whenever JCQ, an awarding organisation, a qualification specification or the Academy's assessment arrangements materially change.

Appendix A - Learner NEA / Coursework Checklist

Read the assessment brief, criteria and candidate instructions before starting.
Know what resources, collaboration and teacher help are permitted.
Keep your work secure and do not share it with other candidates or post it online.
Keep a record of all sources and reference them accurately.
If AI use is permitted, follow the exact rules for prompts, outputs, acknowledgement and evidence.
Make sure the work you submit is your own and can be authenticated by your teacher.
Meet Academy deadlines and tell staff promptly if a serious problem affects your work.
Do not sign an authentication statement until your work is complete and the declaration is true.
If you are told a centre-assessed mark, use the published internal review process promptly if you believe the marking is inconsistent with the criteria.

Appendix B - Staff Assessment Cycle Checklist

Confirm the current specification, task, assessment window and awarding-organisation instructions.
Confirm supervision conditions, permitted resources, access arrangements and authentication requirements.
Brief candidates on confidentiality, plagiarism, AI, referencing, deadlines and permitted assistance.
Plan secure storage, digital access controls and backups before assessment begins.
Monitor progress sufficiently to authenticate each candidate's work.
Record assistance that exceeds general advice where the rules require it.
Mark and annotate against current criteria; complete internal standardisation / verification.
Inform candidates of centre-assessed marks and allow the required review process before submission.
Check marks and documentation before submission; retain work securely through the required period.
Review moderator / standards verifier feedback and complete improvement actions.

Controlled Assessment Policy