We advised you back in October, when we released our new Acceptable Evidence Guidance, that certain pieces of evidence were to be withdrawn and that time is fast approaching. From the 1^st of January 2016, all evidence currently ‘set for withdrawal’ will no longer be acceptable to use as part of a SASE Apprenticeship Completion Certificate claim.  It has been agreed that any evidence submitted before this date will be accepted even if it is not checked until after the deadline. Claims that have previously been rejected can still use the withdrawn evidence until certification has been achieved.

If you have any questions please contact the System Support Team for more information.

On the 5^th of October 2015, we launched the latest version of the Acceptable Evidence Guidance for ACE. As part of the launch we asked you to provide us with evidence examples that you believe should be included in future updates. Due to the volume of responses we have received we have been able to make the following updates:

New Pages

• A dedicated IGCSE page has been created
• Three additional Awarding Organisations have signed up to the guidance:

AIM Awards

Institute of Financial Services /ifs University College

Open College Network West Midlands

New Additions to Existing Pages

• • Five Awarding Organisations have added Acceptable examples to their page: AQA, CMIS, Pearson, Quartz and VTCT.
  • Nine Awarding Organisations have added Unacceptable examples to their page: AQA, CACHE, City & Guilds, CMI, EAL, IMI, NCFE, Pearson and VTCT.  Another example has also been added to the Pre 2006 Transferable Skills page.

Key Amendments to Existing Evidence Examples

The following examples have been amended following consultation with the relevant Awarding Organisation. We apologise for any inconvenience caused.

• • • Edexcel Functional Skills Confirmation Report– This report has been amended to remove the ‘grade achieved’ as a mandatory requirement. We have confirmation from Pearson that this information is not always present and that the inclusion is of the Award and Issue date is sufficient to confirm achievement.

Other changes

• • • AptEd have been acquired by Acentis.  This has been noted on both pages.
    • Lifetime Awards are now Innovate Awards. An Innovate page has been created and examples will be added within the next few days.
    • The Learning Record Service/Personal Learning Record page has been updated to include examples of a range of qualifications including Functional Skills. The mandatory requirements for each example have not been updated or amended.

Thank you to everyone who has supported the update to this guidance. We plan to carry out quarterly updates of the guidance if there is a sufficient supply of new evidence suitable for inclusion. If you would like to submit an evidence example for consideration please contact the System Support Team.