Glossary
Actual end date
The date the learner actually completed or left the aim.
In full
The actual end date is populated only when the aim genuinely ends, whether by completion or withdrawal. It closes the funding period for the aim and, with completion status and outcome, determines how the aim counts in performance measures.
Leaving it empty for a learner who has gone is one of the most consequential errors in the ILR: the learner continues to appear as in learning, funding continues to be claimed, and the correction later is larger than the original fix.
The rules behind this
A learning delivery carries both a planned end date and, once the learner finishes or leaves, an actual end date. The planned date describes the intention at the start; the actual date records what happened.
When a withdrawal is recorded changes both the funding earned and whether the aim counts in the achievement rate. Recording a withdrawal late is not a neutral administrative delay.
Where this comes up
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.
diagnostic
A learner left weeks ago but is still showing as continuing
The learner has stopped attending, but the ILR still shows their aim as open with no actual end date, so the system believes they are still in learning and keeps generating funding for them.
module
The anatomy of the ILR
What is actually inside the Individualised Learner Record: the entities, how they nest, and which fields carry the funding.
scenario
An adult learner withdraws in week six
A learner on a fully funded adult qualification stops attending six weeks in. Follow it from the tutor noticing to the audit test.
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
Withdrawals, breaks and restarts
How leaving is recorded, why the date matters as much as the fact, and where the line falls between a break in learning and a withdrawal.
Sources
These are the official documents this page rests on. Where a figure, a deadline or an exact rule matters, the document is the authority and this page is the explanation.
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