Last year my school applied for OSCA certification for our CiDA course.  We were successful in getting certification for D101, D103 and D203.  In the Dec/Jan entry for 2007/8 we were asked for D201 samples as expected, but we were also asked to send in our 3 entries for D101 as a random sample even though we had OSCA certification which I could understand happening occasionally.

Our exams officer has now given me a list for candidates who's work has to be sent for moderation for the summer examination - 10 D201 students, the 7 students we have doing D101 and 10 D203 students.  So if this is going to happen every time, what was the point in us getting the OSCA certification?  Has everyone else had the same situation?

Have you got this sorted - we have OSCA and you still get the ticks shown against the students when you enter marks, but the OSCA document specifically says that you will be contacted if you need to send a sample. I hope I am correct in saying that you ignore the ticks and only respond to a specific request for a sample direct from Edexcel

Thanks, but yes we got it sorted out by contacting Edexcel.  As you say the computer places ticks next to samples in all, but when we looked further there is a section that says to hold samples and not send to a moderator.

Not that sending off samples is a huge hassle, but it's one less job to do at a busy time of year - so to answer my own question, yes the OSCA is worth the trouble.