Centre Roles and Responsibilities

A centre only needs to be registered to offer Asset Languages external qualifications. To register, the centre must have identified certain people who can be trained, and agree to follow assessment regulations.

The roles described below are applicable whether your centre is a secondary school used to offering external awarding body qualifications, a college, a local community languages group or a primary school.

We have designed the scheme to be flexible - you can work in a partnership or in a consortium with other organisations to fulfil your requirements as a centre. In practice, you may find one individual carries out more than one of these roles.

The Head of Centre is the most senior officer in the organisation, eg the Headteacher or Principal of a school/college. The Head of Centre accepts full responsibility for the correct administration and conduct of OCR examinations.

The Centre Coordinator is the person who has a detailed understanding of the workings of the Asset Languages scheme.

This is a communication and coordination role. Centre Coordinators liaise between the languages team in the centre and the Examinations Officer. They also coordinate teacher assessment and Accredited Teachers.  

In primary schools, this role will probably be filled by the Languages Coordinator. In secondary schools and FE colleges, the role will probably sit with the Head of Languages.

In a consortium, the role can be undertaken by a single teacher who may or may not be a permanent member of staff at one of the schools.

OCR offers free training to Centre Coordinators. Please see the Training page for course details and dates.

In response to your feedback, from September 2007, we are making the Accredited Teacher Training process simpler. Please see the news article for more details.

All language teachers can use teacher assessment (and conduct external assessment speaking tests).

Centres with access to an Accredited Teacher may also purchase Grade Award certificates from OCR. The Accredited Teacher must be accredited for the relevant stage.

It is expected that Accredited Teachers will normally work in the centre but this is not a requirement. For example, a primary school could use an Accredited Teacher from a local secondary school or a peripatetic teacher.

The Exams Officer is the person appointed by the Head of Centre to administer the external tests. OCR corresponds formally with the Exams Officer in this regard. Secondary schools and colleges will have designated Exams Officers. In primary schools this will probably be the person who administers the KS2 tests, or it could be the Languages Coordinator.