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Glossary

Learning aim reference

The code that identifies which qualification or aim is being delivered, looked up on the learning aims database.

In full

The learning aim reference identifies the specific qualification or aim. Its entry on the learning aims database carries the attributes that drive funding, including level, guided learning hours and which funding streams may fund it.

An aim that is not valid for the stream, the date or the learner's circumstances will either fail validation or produce no funding, so the reference is checked at enrolment rather than at return time.

Where this comes up

diagnostic

An aim is on the ILR but generates no funding

The aim validates and appears on the ILR, but generates no earnings. Validation and funding are different tests: a record can be perfectly valid and still not qualify for funding.

module

What curriculum decisions do to funding

Curriculum teams make funding decisions every week without calling them that. This module connects each decision to the data it creates and the money it moves.

diagnostic

Learning support is claimed but the evidence chain is incomplete

A learning support claim has been made, but one of the links in the chain is missing: the assessment of need, the record of support actually delivered, the cost of delivering it, or the recording that triggers the claim.

module

Learning support: the evidence chain from need to claim

Need assessed, support delivered, cost recorded, claim made. Every link has to hold, and a gap anywhere makes the claim indefensible however genuine the support was.

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.

diagnostic

The same learner appears twice

One person has been recorded twice, usually with two different learner reference numbers, and sometimes with two different ULNs. The system treats them as two people.