1. Jim Haywood - Product Manager for Statutory Returns School Census Autumn 2015 - Two Year A-Levels

2. Nova-T6 Export to SQL New Level is available for the new two year A-Levels exams Code: GCE2Y Description: GCE Advanced 2 Year Course Patch available for SIMS Spring Release 2015 Patch incorporated into SIMS Summer Release 2015

3. Nova-T6 Export to SQL If exports to SQL take place before the start of Academic Year 2015/16 and the new Level is used, new Course containers will be created for the new Level

4. Nova-T6 Export to SQL If the first export to SQL using the new Level takes place after the start of Academic Year 2015/16, new course containers will not be created and the classes with the new Level will remain part of the course container they were attached to by the last export before the Academic Year started

5. Academic Management and Exams If schools make use of the new GCE2Y Level for Nova-T6 export to SQL, they are likely to have some classes for a subject where the students are aiming for the one year A-Level exam award, i.e. retakes, and other classes for that subject where they are aiming for the two year A-Level exam award This is fine where the teaching for the one year A-Level exam is kept separate to the teaching for the new two year A-Level exam

6. Academic Management and Exams If schools make use of the new GCE2Y Level for Nova-T6 export to SQL, they are likely to have some classes for a subject where the students are aiming for the one year A-Level exam award, i.e. retakes, and other classes for that subject where they are aiming for the two year A-Level exam award This is fine where the teaching for the one year A-Level exam is kept separate to the teaching for the new two year A-Level exam However, where they are to be taught together two classes would be taught at the same place and time and with the same teacher, which can cause problems with registers, marksheets and reporting

7. Course Management and Exams Use of the new GCE2Y makes it considerable easier to manage courses and their links to Exams The new two year A-Level exams for a subject will have a different QAN to one year A-Level exams for that subject Initially schools might have some students taking an A-level exam for a subject using the one year QAN, i.e. a retake, and others taking the subject using the two year QAN

8. Course Management and Exams Use of the new GCE2Y level makes it considerable easier to manage courses and their links to exams Importing GCE2Y into Nova-T6 and exporting classes with this level before the start the start of Academic Year 2015/16 means that different courses become available for the one and two year A-levels for a subject, which means that classes are linked automatically to the right courses the appropriate QAN can be indicated for the course the appropriate Exam Award can be indicated for the course

9. Course Management Support for two year courses has been improved Where the Normal Duration is set to “Two Years” the running of Update Course Memberships for the current Academic Year will result in the Planned End Date for memberships starting in that Academic to be modified to the 31 st July of the next Academic Year, e.g. if the current Academic Year is 2015/16 and a course has a Normal Duration set to “Two Years”, Update Course Membership will set the Planned End Date to 31/07/2017 Where the Normal Duration is set to anything other the “Two Years”, Update Course Membership will operate as previously

10. School Census Autumn 2015 If a school decides not to make use of the new GCE2Y for export for Nova-T6 to SQL, they could subsequently decide to manually create new courses for GCE2Y and populate the courses by remove classes from the one year course and add them to the two year course (with Auto Update Class Links unticked and Auto Update Memberships ticked in both courses) marking students memberships as Exceptions (out) for the one year course and adding them to the two year course (either by ticking Protect for each membership or by unticking Auto Update Membership for the course)

11. School Census Autumn 2015 We suggest using the class method described above when the students are never members of the course. However, if a school decides to use Exceptions in such a situation, it is important that a single day membership is left in place. A single day membership will ensure that Update Course Membership does not remove the Exception A single day membership for an Exception will not be included in the Census.

12. Thank you for your time Return to Contents Return to Contents