Are my prior English and maths qualifications suitable?

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Even if you have achieved English or maths qualifications prior to starting your apprenticeship, this does not automatically mean that you can be exempted from studying functional skills because:

You must have suitable evidence such as an original certificate (with official logos and holograms)
The qualification must be from a suitable list of accepted qualifications - some less known qualifications are not acceptable
- The qualification must be at Level 1, 2 or above (a Level 1 qualification will not exempt you from studying Level 2 English or maths)
If you have overseas qualifications, you will need to obtain an ENIC statement to confirm their equivalence when compared to British qualifications

Contents (click to jump)

What types of qualifications are acceptable?

International qualifications & comparability

Is my evidence suitable?

Option 1: Certification

Option 2: Learner Record Service - Personal Learner Record

Option 3: Candidate statement of results or printout from awarding body's web service (least reliable option)

I have lost my evidence or I do not have suitable evidence, what can I do?

What types of qualifications are acceptable?

The table below shows the minimum English/maths qualifications required to achieve your apprenticeship for either Level 2 or Level 3+ apprenticeships (see separate tabs). Apprentices on Level 2 courses that only have Level 1 qualifications for English or maths will be requested to train for functional skills Level 2 and attempt the examination at least once, in order to upskill your current English/maths level. Failing the exam will not prevent you from going through Gateway to take the End Point Assessment.

Apprenticeship Standards English maths exemptions.xlsx

International qualifications & comparability

If you have qualifications achieved in another country that does not appear in the table above, you may still be exempted from functional skills training if you can demonstrate that these qualifications are equivalent to a British standard such as GCSEs and GCEs. To demonstrate this, you need to obtain a Statement of Comparability from the UK ENIC service. The infographic on the right shows how comparability leads to English/maths exemptions.

Click here to visit the UK ENIC website

Is my evidence suitable?

You must have suitable certificates or evidence to be exempted from functional skills, you cannot claim to hold qualifications for exemption if you have lost the appropriate evidence. You may have some documentation such as a Statement of Results which declares your grades but we cannot accept it as valid evidence because it will not be accepted by the End Point Assessment Organisation who cannot certify your apprenticeship without suitable English/maths evidence.

Option 1: Certification

Ideally the best form of evidence is a genuine certificate, printed by an awarding body on certificate paper with suitable holograms, watermarks and other originality features.

The certificate MUST include the following:

Your full name
The qualification name/title and level
- Some certificates may not be for an entire qualification but may be for accredited units only. Unit certificates are not acceptable unless all units within the qualification are included. For English functional skills, this must include Reading, Writing and Speaking & Listening.
The date of achievement (a.k.a award date, completion date, certification date)
Awarding organisation identifier (the logo of the awarding body such as City & Guilds, AQA, Edexcel, Pearson, WJEC etc.)
Grade awarded or Pass/Fail result
Additional reference codes and identifiers:
- Your date of birth and gender
- The certificate number and/or validation code
- The qualification accreditation number (learning aim)

On some certificates, these references may not be immediately obvious, but may be combined into a long reference number. For example, a City & Guilds certificate has a number such as "12345678910111213/M/030883", which incorporates the date of birth, gender and other codes.

If you are asked to provide a photocopy or photograph of your certificate, please make sure the image is good quality and include all content of the certificate, do not take a poor quality photo and do not crop the important reference numbers, logos and security features from view.

Option 2: Learner Record Service - Personal Learner Record

Apprentices do not have access to this service, this must be checked by College staff. If you are a British citizen and achieved qualifications after the Learner Record Service (LRS) was introduced in 2002, it is possible that your English/maths qualifications may appear on the LRS and we can obtain the evidence from your Personal Learner Record (PLR).

This service is not guaranteed to provide all entries for all students. There is still a chance your qualifications do not show on the LRS, or it may show evidence of your English/maths achievement but some information is missing, in which case we will be unable to use your PLR as suitable evidence. If you have lost your certificates, you can ask College staff to check the LRS to see if we can obtain evidence of your English/maths achievement.

If you would like College staff to check the Learner Record Service, please send us an email:

wblfunctionalskills@sheffcol.ac.uk

Option 3: Candidate statement of results or printout from awarding body's web service (least reliable option)

If you have lost your certificates and your evidence does not show on the LRS, it may be possible to obtain a candidate statement of results or printout from the awarding body's website. This is not something you can obtain yourself, you must try asking the awarding body directly or asking the school/college with whom you sat the exam. This type of evidence is not recommended because it may be considered unsuitable even if it is a genuine source of evidence provided by the awarding body.

A candidate statement MUST include: Your full name, qualification name/title and level, grade achieved, date of achievement, awarding organisation identifier, date of birth, gender, status and assessment type. Statements are more likely to be accepted if they were provided by the awarding body such as City & Guilds, Edexcel or AQA. If the statement was provided by a school or college, chances are it is probably not acceptable because it is not guaranteed to be accurate.

"Provisional" statements of results are not acceptable.

I have lost my evidence or I do not have suitable evidence, what can I do?

You can try asking the awarding body, or your previous school/college where you achieved the English/maths qualification and ask if you can obtain a reprint or a re-issued certificate. You should be aware that there may be a fee for this service.

If you are unable to obtain suitable evidence, you must study for functional skills English/maths during your apprenticeship and you must pass the exam and achieve the qualification in order to be able to pass Gateway and sit your End Point Assessment to achieve the overall apprenticeship.