ESB News Winter Edition 2022

Ben joined ESB almost two years ago and has been an integral member of the ESB Team ever since.

Outside of work, Ben enjoys spending time with his wife and two children. Being the fitness fanatic he is, you can also find him on the tennis court or enjoying the outdoors.

Below, you can read all about Ben ’ s time at ESB so far - including the initiatives that he ’ s been involved with and his future ESB projects.

First challenges

Well, it has certainly been an interesting start to life at ESB!

My first day was Tuesday, 31 st March 2020, exactly 1 week and 1 day into the first English lockdown of the Covid-19 pandemic. One of the (many) motivations for applying for this role was the opportunity to return to working in an office, as my previous job had been remote – the irony is not lost on me here! relating to the types of qualifications offered and the market each was operating in. For us, it was centre closures meaning assessments were unable to take place. At this stage, most centres were not set up to offer either remote learning or remote assessment, and the reality was – regarding the latter – neither were we! What quickly followed was the first of three Ofqual regulatory frameworks, all within 12 months; the main purpose of these was to provide opportunities for learners to achieve the qualifications they There were some immediate challenges faced by all awarding organisations, with nuances

Ben and the team scaled all the challenges they faced this year, so he decided to scale another for good measure!

have been working so hard towards, despite the restrictions. For some learners, this meant an adapted assessment, i.e. online instead of face-to- face and for others, calculated grades (CAGs or TAGs – Teacher Assessed Grades), where teacher judgement decided the outcome or grade of each learner, backed up with supporting evidence. The team worked incredibly hard to put new IT systems, policies, processes, training and guidance documents in place to support centres with adapted assessments and CAGs. The outcome was that we managed to result thousands of learners that otherwise would not have been able to complete their qualification, despite all the effort that had been put in to prepare for their assessments. The feedback from centres was that our processes were easy to follow and non-burdensome, and as a result, we received zero complaints or appeals – a fantastic outcome! Alongside this, we also managed to build, pilot and deliver a fully online offer for our ESOL International qualifications. This meant that our centres in Italy, Greece and North Macedonia were able to continue with assessments, despite the restrictions in their respective countries. It took a monumental team effort to get this ready in a relatively short timeframe which culminated in a fully online assessment series in March 2021, where over 2,000 learners in Greece completed their assessments online with fantastic outcomes relating to the validity and reliability of the results.

Ben and his children enjoying a bike ride through the woods

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