Glossary
Achievement rate
The proportion of a cohort that achieved their aim.
In full
The achievement rate measures how many learners in the cohort achieved, combining whether they stayed and whether they passed.
It is the headline number in qualification achievement rate reporting and is used in accountability and inspection conversations.
Where this comes up
diagnostic
The achievement rate is lower than the college expected
The published or modelled achievement rate is lower than the college's own view of how well learners did. The difference is usually in the data rather than in the teaching.
module
Qualification achievement rates: how your data becomes your results
Achievement rates are calculated from the ILR. Understanding the cohort is what turns an unexplained rate into an explainable one.
diagnostic
An aim has ended but no outcome has been recorded
The aim has an actual end date, so the system knows it finished, but nothing records whether the learner achieved it. The achievement rate calculation treats an aim with no achievement recorded as a non-achievement.
module
Closing the funding year properly
At the final return the funding, the achievement rates and the audit population are all fixed at once. Everything that will be corrected has to be corrected before it.
diagnostic
Should this be a break in learning or a withdrawal?
The learner has stopped, and the question is whether to record a break in learning, which pauses the programme on the basis that they will return, or a withdrawal, which ends it. The two have different funding and achievement consequences, so the choice is not administrative.
module
How further education funding actually works
Colleges are not paid a block grant for teaching. They are funded through several separate streams, each with its own rules, and each earned by recording delivery in the ILR.