Glossary of terms
On this page
We have provided a glossary of all the terminology used within this QualsNI section with which you may not be familiar.
Organisations
List of organisations | |
|---|---|
| DE | Department of Education in Northern Ireland |
| DfE | Department for Education in England |
| Regulators | are the organisations responsible for recognising awarding organisations, developing criteria for qualifications, accrediting these qualifications and monitoring their assessment and awarding |
| CCEA Regulation | is the function within CCEA that acts as the regulator of qualifications in Northern Ireland |
| Ofqual | is the regulator of qualifications in England |
| Welsh Government | one of the roles of the Welsh Government was to function as the regulator of qualifications in Wales |
| Qualifications Wales | is a new organisation which came into being in September 2015 and took over the regulatory functions currently carried out by the Welsh Government |
| Awarding Organisations (AOs) | are organisations that are recognised by regulators for the purpose of developing, assessing and awarding qualifications and issuing certificates for learner achievements |
| CCEA Awarding Organisation | is the function within CCEA that develops, assesses and awards qualifications used in schools and colleges in Northern Ireland and issues certificates for learner achievements |
| UCAS | is the organisation responsible for managing applications to higher education courses in the UK |
Qualifications
List of qualifications related terms | |
|---|---|
| A levels | are the qualifications that the majority of students use to gain entry to university |
| AS levels | are the qualifications generally taken by students after the first year of their A level course. Students may also take a full A level in the subject |
| A2 units | are the units taken by students at the end of their A level course. Unlike AS units, A2 units, when taken on their own, do not make up a qualification |
| GCSEs | are the main qualifications taken by students at the end of Key Stage 4 (Year 12) |
| Open qualifications market | is a term used to describe a situation where multiple awarding organisations offer regulated qualifications to schools |
| Grading system | is a term used to describe the grades that are issued to students to recognise their achievement in qualifications(for example A*- G) |
| De-coupled | is a term applied to A level qualifications when the AS marks do not contribute to the overall A level grade |
| Linear | is a term applied to a qualification when all the exams have to be taken at the end of the course |
| Modular | is a term applied to a qualification when the exams may be taken in stages throughout the course of study for a qualification |
| Re-sit | is a term used to describe the opportunity for students to re-take an exam / qualification for which they have already received a mark / grade |
| Reformed GCSEs and A levels | are qualifications that have been designed to meet Ofqual and Qualifications Wales criteria and are being introduced over a 3 year period from 2015 to 2017 |
Other terms
Other terms | |
|---|---|
| NIEFQAN | contains a list of all the qualifications that have been approved for use and are being offered in schools in Northern Ireland, along with the performance points that each qualification attracts |
| Performance points | Performance points and GCSE/GCE size equivalence are used by DE as they allow qualifications of different size and grade structures to be compared when measuring school performance at key stage 4 and post 16 in terms of qualifications achieved by pupils |
| UCAS tariff points | are points allocated to post-16 qualifications used for entry to higher education which allows broad comparisons to be made about a wide range of qualifications by universities and colleges |