General Qualifications Logistics and National Curriculum Assessments (September 2018 to August 2020)

This contract covers all aspects of delivery for the Standards and Testing Agency's (STA) General Qualifications Yellow Label Service.

The "Yellow Label service" is a logistics service provided by STA to examination centres in England administering GCSE, GCE, BTEC, Functional Skills and similar approved qualifications. The service covers the collection of packages of completed examination scripts from the centres and their delivery to either scanning bureaus or residential markers as directed by Awarding Organisations, who are responsible for organising the marking of the scripts.

The service aims to minimise the risk of lost packages, reduce the administrative burden on exams officers, and provide value for money. Activity is focused on set examinations series with the Joint Council for Qualifications setting the timetable for GCSE and GCE series, and the Awarding Organisations determining other series. The service handles approximately 800,000 packages each academic year with the majority processed during the summer examinations series running from May to July.

It also covers National Curriculum Assessment Logistics as a 1 year contingency while the service is moved to the STA's new Test Operations contract with Capita.

Key stage 1 (KS1)

The annual KS1 tests have been designed to test pupils' knowledge and understanding of English reading, mathematics and English grammar, punctuation and spelling (GPS) at the end of their KS1 education (i.e. at the end of Year 2, aged 6-7). The test will be administered to c. 600,000 pupils located in c. 15,500 schools in May.

Key Stage 2 (KS2)

The annual KS2 tests are designed to test pupils' knowledge and understanding of English reading, mathematics and English GPS at the end of their KS2 education (i.e. at the end of Year 6, aged 10-11). The test will be administered to c. 590,000 pupils located in c. 15,500 schools on specific days in May.

Phonics screening check (PSC)

The annual PSC check is designed to help teachers assess whether pupils have learnt phonic decoding to an appropriate standard. The check, which comprises a list of 40 words, is administered to all pupils in Year 1 (aged 5-6), and children in Year 2 (aged 6-7) who did not meet the standard in Year 1.