Apprenticeship EPA (resit) Achievement

Hi Wayne,

Not 100% sure if this first part is the official way to record, but we have this situation every year, with EPA in June, results in July, then resits in September and results on the P14 ILR close date.

If the learner first sat full EPA in 2023/24, and successful achievement was in 2024/25 but still within the Period 14 window, then we simply update the 2023/24 record from no or parial achievement, to achieved, this way, the learner only appears once in your QAR. If EPA didn't cross an academic year, this is simply what you would do anyway.

ESFA advised us, if the successful achievement in 2024/25 is outside of the Period 14 window for 2023/24, then we have to add a new ZPROG aim starting in the new year, with 1 OTJ hour and new *TNP's at zero, ensure you include the restart indicator and original start date, this means your original record will remain as a non-achiever in 2023/24 and a duplicate record will show the achiever in the 2024/25 academic year.

I don't think this is particuarly fair as its ultimately a duplicate record and personally we do continue to update the old record, even past Period 14, we know the ESFA won't ever use it in QAR but for us, it helps to know that those people who left in prior years did ultimately achieve and had they achieved within the academic year, our QAR would have looked more positive, this is the flaw with losing the achievers vs timely in QAR for standards.

I hope this helps a little.

Louise

*for info the TNP's in PICS cause funding reconcilation issues, so they advise using the full TNP, either way it doesn't matter as you have already had the full funding

It would be good if ESFA provided guidance on this as we were told something completely different... We record the achievement date and update the completion status when we know the apprentice has either re-sit and passed, or we have confirmation that they are not planning to re-sit (in which case they are recorded with no achievement using their original EPA date). 

I'm with Jessica on this one, no idea what that stuff is Louise...

Wayne, because you know NOW, put the learner back to 1&8 for the 23/24 R14 data and then report the 2&1 in R02 with the AchDate after 31 July.

It's key to get a very quick response from failing learners about doing resits (particularly if their EPAs are in May/June/July!!!) so you don't end up in this muddle.

Louise Tomkins Wow, that thing you've been advised by ESFA about starting a new ZPROG is pretty wild! We wouldn't do that. What would even be the point? Do unfunded Apps go in any stats? The only thing would be so the PLR showed a pass I guess?

If a student fails EPA, but we know they want to resit, we leave as 1&8. At this time of year, I then make sure that everyone at 1&8 really does still plan to sit/resit their EPA in 24/25. If no, then we finally record the fail, backdating to when they last attempted.

It does happen that a year closes, and then later the apprentice decides not to resit after all, so we record the fail (backdated) in the academic year after which it happened. That does mean you lose the entire Completion Payment (and pushes the fail into the next academic year), but that's the risk I explain to the apprenticeship team. I don't think we've ever decided to record the fail in the year of first attempt, then the student decided to resit in the following year. If we did, I just don't think we'd record it in the ILR.

Wayne Salter Those students are required in 24/25 (as Steve has said), as the Achievement Date will now be in 24/25, and that should always be entered in the year in which it happened where possible.

Ruth Canham-James I did try to argue it but this was their only option, even had Teams calls with their technical team to discuss it. We can't really keep 1/8 cross years, because as you said if the learner fails to resit EPA in the new year, of which we did have one or two in the earlier days, we have then lost the completion payment which for us is over £4k per learner, so we make sure that is claimed at the first EPA attempt.

Steve Hewitt I met with a guy called Scott from the ESFA back in June last year,  below is part of the clarification as I don't have in writing all of the steps (ignore the certificate comment), he specifically said I had to claim the completion and mark as achieved or not at the point of the first full EPA, then add a new ZPROG, he seemed to suggest it would convert the previous fail into a pass, which we all know it doesn't once QAR is closed, which is why I still update the old one. I probably only have half a dozen a year affected by this a year but its still half a dozen non achievers I would rather not have. I do also agree with Jessica that the ESFA should provide some further clarity on cross year claims, but your suggestion would also work, just means the completion payment falls in Period 2 and not at the point of first full EPA.

Apologies if this has confused anyone, we clearly all have our own ways of doing things that are not always consistent, but in this instance, is on the advice of ESFA.

Thanks

Louise

Louise, this is ringing vague bells now, but kind of relies on DfE agreeing what "completion" means. When I had this discussion with them several years ago (around the time of the (re)introduction of AchDate), the output of the discussion was Completion is only when they properly, definitely, categorically stop doing things and that resits were part of that (very similar to what Ruth describes above).

My confusion with what Scott has said here is the "if the learner requires further learning" bit because, in general, resits *don't*, they just need to be better at remembering what they've already learnt...

But, I think certainly one thing we can all agree on is them producing clear, definitive advice on resits would be very useful all round!

Thanks for the advice - much appreciated