Edexcel aims to facilitate open access to BTEC and Edexcel NVQ qualifications for learners who are eligible for reasonable adjustment and/or special consideration in assessments, without compromising the assessment of the skills, knowledge, understanding or competence being measured. This will be achieved through:

Reasonable adjustment: This is agreed at the pre-assessment planning stage and is any action that helps to reduce the effect of a disability or difficulty that places the learner at a substantial disadvantage in the assessment situation.  

Reasonable adjustments must not, however, affect the reliability or validity of assessment outcomes, nor must they give the learner an assessment advantage over other learners undertaking the same or similar assessments.

Special consideration: This is a post-assessment allowance to reflect temporary illness, injury or indisposition that occurred at the time of assessment. Any special consideration granted cannot remove the difficulty the learner faced at the time of assessment and can only be a relatively small adjustment to ensure that the integrity of the assessment is not compromised.

Special consideration cannot apply to ‘licence to practise’ units within a qualification, or to ‘licence to practise’ qualifications.

Edexcel will only consider requests for reasonable adjustment and special consideration submitted by the Head of Centre, Principal or CEO.

You can find more information about reasonable adjustment and special consideration by referring to the document 'RA and SC 06-12 Reasonable Adjustment and Special Considerations Policy' (below). This policy replaces the previous Edexcel policy concerning learners with particular requirements (Assessment of Vocationally Related Qualification: Regulations and Guidance Relating to Learners with Special Requirements (2002).

Further information can be found in the centre policies section of this website.