ASDAN qualifications membership information

• Entry 1, 2 and 3 (Access) qualifications meet the needs of learners working below GCSE (Intermediate) level
• Levels 1 and 2 (Intermediate) qualifications are comparable in size to GCSEs 
• Level 3 (Higher) qualifications are comparable in size to A/AS-levels 

Following amendments to the school and college performance tables in England, qualifications that do not rely on a written examination for assessment purposes, such as ASDAN qualifications, do not, themselves, contribute to the tables. There is however strong evidence that ASDAN qualifications improve performance in English and Mathematics, which are double weighted in the Progress 8 performance measure.

UCAS points have been ascribed to the Certificate of Personal Effectiveness (CoPE), Award of Personal Effectiveness (AoPE), Extended Project Qualification and Wider Key Skills (Northern Ireland only) qualifications at Level 3 as follows:

• CoPE – 16 UCAS points
• AoPE – 8 UCAS points
• Extended Project Qualification – 28 UCAS points
• Wider Key Skills – 6 UCAS points per skill (Northern Ireland only)

Our courses can support the Welsh Baccalaureate skills challenge certificate element through:

• opportunities for individual investigation
• work-related education, enterprise and employability
• personal and social education
• community participation projects
• being a global citizen

We can also provide Welsh centres with opportunities to:

• enhance and certificate transition activities from Key Stages 2 to 3
• introduce GCSE-comparable qualifications into Key Stages 3 and 4
• celebrate and recognise students’ wider achievement

In Wales, ASDAN qualifications can contribute towards school and college performance measures. For full details, see the list of qualification codes and performance figures for Wales and Northern Ireland.

Ranging from Access level (and below) to Higher level, ASDAN courses embrace the four capacities of the Scottish Curriculum for Excellence, enabling young people to become responsible citizens, confident individuals, effective contributors and successful learners.

ASDAN programmes and qualifications can fulfil many of the Curriculum for Excellence experiences and outcomes to help bring about improvements for all learners in Scotland.

Our programmes and qualifications can support:

• the DENI 11–19 Entitlement Framework and the minimum statutory requirements of the Learning for Life and Work (LLW) Area of Learning, Employability, Personal Development and Local and Global Citizenship at Key Stages 3 and 4 and Home Economics at Key Stage 3
• the requirement that all learners, post primary (or 11–19), develop their skills in being creative, working with others, self-management, managing information, thinking, problem solving and decision-making
• Area Learning Communities/Local Community School Partnerships
• the introduction of GCSE-comparable qualifications into Key Stages 3 and 4

In Northern Ireland, ASDAN qualifications can contribute towards school and college performance measures. For full details, see the list of qualification codes and performance figures for Wales and Northern Ireland.

ASDAN Preparing for Adulthood programmes are widely used by Irish post-primary schools (special and mainstream) and adult day care centres for learners with a wide range of intellectual disabilities.

The Preparing for Adulthood programmes can be used to support the Level 2 Learning Programmes (L2LP) within the Junior Cycle.

Short Courses are ideal for schools offering Transition Year options to students in the interim year between Junior Certificate and Leaving Certificate. They offer an alternative to both national Transition Year units of work and school-designed units.

Short Courses are also ideally suited to vocational educational centres offering Youthreach programmes to young people who are long-term unemployed or have left school with few qualifications.