Students with more than 40 planned hours a week

This report lists students whose recorded programme works out at more than 40 hours a week. DfE sets no minimum for a study programme, but it does set that ceiling. A weekly figure is two numbers divided: the hours you planned, and how long the programme runs for. So a student can appear here because the hours are too high, or because the dates are shorter than the programme really is.

Planned hours for a study programme are the hours planned for the academic year. T Level planned hours are different: DfE records them for the length of the T Level programme, not for one year of it. If a two year T Level carries its full programme hours against a one year set of dates, the implied weekly figure doubles without anybody having recorded an hour too many. DfE's instruction covers both sides of the division: adjust the planned learning hours so the student is not studying more than 40 hours a week, and make sure both the planned hours and the dates reflect that.

The check is on planned hours against the recorded programme duration, so start and end dates drive it as much as Planned learning hours and Planned employability, enrichment and pastoral hours do. DfE adds two adjustments that change the numerator legitimately: where a student completes significantly earlier than the planned end date, planned hours must be reduced to the actual period of attendance; and where a student withdraws from an aim within the first six weeks, the planned hours for that aim come out of the total, unless removing the hours already delivered in those first six weeks would make a material difference to the funding band, in which case the delivered hours may stay in.

Planned hours decide the funding band for a 16 to 19 student, so an overstated hours figure is an overstated allocation. DfE's ceiling gives it a way to see recorded programmes that cannot plausibly have been delivered as described.

Students whose recorded planned hours, set against the recorded programme dates, come to more than 40 hours a week.

Not necessarily, but it does mean something in the record is inconsistent, because DfE states the ceiling as an absolute. The common case is that the hours are right and the dates are wrong, which is a data problem rather than a delivery problem, and it is corrected in the dates rather than by cutting hours that are genuinely timetabled.

• The student is on a T Level, whose planned hours DfE records for the length of the programme, and the recorded dates cover only part of it.
• The programme genuinely runs longer than the dates currently on the record, for example a two year programme entered with a first year end date.
• The hours include delivery that was correctly retained under DfE's first six weeks rule after a withdrawal from one aim.

• Planned end date entered as the end of the current academic year on a programme that runs longer.
• Programme hours entered once against a single year of a multi year programme.
• A course template carrying hours for a full year applied to a student who started late, so the hours were never reduced to the remaining period.
• Planned hours built from an intended timetable that was never delivered, rather than from the timetable that exists.

• Divide the recorded planned hours by the number of weeks between the recorded start and end dates, and see which of the two is out of line with the actual programme.
• Check whether the student is on a T Level, where the hours cover the whole programme rather than one year.

• Take the student's recorded planned learning hours and planned employability, enrichment and pastoral hours, and the recorded start and planned end dates.
• Work out the implied weekly figure, and decide whether the hours or the dates are the part that does not match the real programme.
• If the dates are wrong, establish what the programme actually runs to, and whether the same template has been applied to a whole cohort.
• If the hours are wrong, ask what they were built from: a timetable that exists, or an intention.
• Check whether the student completed significantly earlier than planned, which under DfE's instruction means the planned hours should have been reduced to the actual period of attendance.
• Check whether the student withdrew from any aim within the first six weeks, and whether DfE's rule on removing those hours was applied, including the material difference exception.
• Decide whether this is one student, one course, or one way of building hours that affects a cohort.

• Learner.PlanLearnHours
• Learner.PlanEEPHours
• LearningDelivery.LearnStartDate
• LearningDelivery.LearnPlanEndDate
• LearningDelivery.LearnActEndDate
• LearningDelivery.FundModel

• PlanLearnHours_03
• PlanLearnHours_04
• PlanLearnHours_05

• Y-202
• Y-203
• Y-212

• R04
• R14

Planned hours place the student in a funding band, so hours that cannot be delivered as recorded carry a funding consequence. DfE says it may contact you in-year about this report, which is the point at which a correction still costs nothing beyond making it.

DfE states that planned hours must be realistic, deliverable and supported by auditable evidence that the activity is timetabled and exists. That is the test: not that the hours were calculated, but that the timetable behind them can be produced.

• The timetable the planned hours were built from, showing the activity exists and is scheduled.
• The course or programme record showing the real start and end of the programme, particularly for a multi year programme.
• Where hours were reduced after an early completion or a withdrawal in the first six weeks, the record of what was removed and why.

• Where the dates are wrong, correct them so the recorded duration matches the programme, which DfE requires alongside the hours themselves.
• Where the hours are wrong, adjust the planned learning hours so the student is not recorded above the weekly ceiling.
• Where a student completed significantly earlier than planned, reduce the planned hours to the actual period of attendance, as DfE instructs.
• Make the change in the system that owns the curriculum and enrolment data, then regenerate and resubmit, rather than editing the return.
• If the same template produced the figure for a cohort, correct the template as well as the students, or it returns next collection.

• Keep the timetable that shows the hours are deliverable and scheduled, since that is what DfE names as the evidence.
• Where hours were retained under the first six weeks material difference exception, record that this is what was applied and what the difference was.

• Check the implied weekly figure at the point hours are set, rather than discovering it on a monitoring report.
• Treat multi year programmes as a known exception in the hours build, so programme length hours are never divided by a single year of dates.
• Make the reduction after an early completion part of closing the student's record, not a year end exercise.

• Are the hours wrong on this report, or are the dates?
• How many students share the course or template that produced this figure?
• When a student completes early, who reduces the planned hours, and how do we know it happened?

• If these hours were corrected today, does any student move funding band, and how many?
• Is this a handful of records or the way we build hours for a whole curriculum area?

• A good answer says which of the two numbers was wrong, shows the timetable behind the hours that stayed, and says how many other students were affected.
• A weak answer is that the students really do that much, with no timetable that can be produced to show it.

• planned-hours-explained
• sixteen-nineteen-mechanics
• evidence-principles