A standardisation meeting is not a compliance box — it is the only regular chance a team of assessors has to look at the same piece of evidence and disagree in the same room. If everyone agrees quickly, you did not standardise; you just met. The point of the exercise is to surface the disagreements that would otherwise walk out of the room and into learners’ assessments.
This guide sets out what standardisation is actually for, what a working meeting looks like, an agenda template you can use tomorrow, how to record decisions so they hold up to external quality assurance, and the failures that make an EQA lose confidence at first sight.
What standardisation is for — and what it is not
Standardisation is the process by which everyone involved in assessing a qualification comes to apply the standard the same way. It exists because a written criterion — “the learner can carry out a manual handling risk assessment” — is silent on the questions that matter in practice: how detailed, how many hazards, which controls, how well justified. Two competent assessors, working alone, will fill those silences differently. Standardisation drags those differences into the open before they become inconsistent grades.
What it is not:
- Not a training session. A team meeting to explain new awarding-organisation guidance is useful but not standardisation.
- Not a checklist review. Working through the syllabus does not test how anyone applies it.
- Not moderation. Moderation aligns decisions after they have been made; standardisation aligns the interpretation before.
- Not IQA sampling. Sampling is one IQA checking one assessor’s decisions; standardisation is the whole team looking at the same evidence together.
The distinguishing feature of a real standardisation meeting is that participants judge the same piece of assessed work and then compare their judgements. Anything else is a team meeting.
Who attends
All assessors delivering the qualification, chaired by the IQA or lead IQA. Where the centre has more than one IQA on the qualification, they all attend — otherwise the “who checks the checkers” gap opens. For high-risk or new qualifications an EQA representative may attend the first meeting.
Attendance is not optional. An assessor who consistently misses standardisation should be sampled more heavily until they attend.
How often
Awarding organisations generally require at least twice a year. In practice, the minimum should rise where:
- The qualification is new to the centre (first year: quarterly)
- New assessors have joined (extra meeting within their first three months)
- An EQA has raised a standardisation action point (extra meeting before the closure date)
- A learner appeal has been upheld (the source of the disagreement must be standardised)
Meetings scheduled and then repeatedly cancelled read to an EQA as unresolved risk. Better to hold a shorter meeting than to defer.
A standardisation meeting agenda that actually works
The purpose of the agenda is to make sure the group actually does the work — judging the same evidence — rather than talking around it. A workable structure:
- Attendance and apologies (2 min) — recorded verbatim
- Actions from the previous meeting (5 min) — closed, carried forward, or newly at risk
- Awarding-organisation updates (5 min) — brief; new specification changes, EQA feedback, new evidence-authenticity guidance
- Blind marking exercise (30-45 min) — the main event, see below
- Comparison and discussion of judgements (20-30 min) — where the disagreement is aired
- Agreed decision and rationale (10 min) — the standardised interpretation to apply from today
- Impact on live cohorts (5 min) — does anything need to be re-sampled or re-judged as a result
- Any other business + date of next meeting (5 min)
Aim for around 90 minutes total. Longer than two hours and the marking exercise stops being taken seriously.
The blind marking exercise — the actual work of standardisation
Before the meeting, the chair selects one or two pieces of assessed work — ideally learner evidence, appropriately anonymised — that touch a criterion the team is likely to interpret differently. Each assessor is sent the evidence in advance, judges it independently, and brings their judgement (with rationale) to the meeting.
Choose the evidence deliberately:
- Recent work on a live cohort — theoretical exemplars from ten years ago do not test today’s interpretation
- A criterion where you have seen assessor drift, or where an EQA has flagged concern
- An evidence type that at least one assessor uses infrequently (witness testimony, professional discussion, RPL)
- Borderline work — evidence that could plausibly be judged pass, referral or fail
When judgements are compared and the group disagrees, that is the meeting doing its job. The follow-up is to write down the standardised interpretation the team will apply from that point on.
Recording the meeting — what an EQA needs to see
The minutes are not a transcript. They are the audit trail that shows standardisation is real. At minimum the record contains:
- Attendance (present, apologies, absent-without-apology)
- Evidence used — anonymised reference, criterion, evidence type
- Each attendee’s initial judgement — even if agreed. The disagreement, not just the resolution, is the value.
- The standardised judgement and the rationale for it
- Impact on live cohorts — which learners, which units, which assessors may need to re-sample or re-judge
- Actions with owners and closure dates
- Date of next meeting
An EQA reading this minute type in five minutes forms a clear picture of how the centre standardises. An EQA reading “meeting held — no issues” forms a different picture and looks harder.
Standardisation vs moderation — where the confusion sits
The terms are often used interchangeably but they do different work:
| Standardisation | Moderation | |
|---|---|---|
| When | Before assessment decisions are finalised | After decisions are made |
| What | Aligns the interpretation of the criteria | Aligns the decisions themselves |
| Who | The assessor team, chaired by IQA | IQA reviewing decisions across assessors, or EQA across centres |
| Output | Agreed interpretation; may change how work is judged next | Agreed decision; may change the grade that was given |
Both are required in a well-run centre. Standardisation reduces the need for corrective moderation; strong moderation catches the drift standardisation missed.
Six standardisation-meeting failures EQAs flag most often
- Meeting held with no marking exercise. Attendance is not standardisation. If the group did not judge the same piece of evidence, no standardisation happened.
- One voice dominates. The most senior assessor speaks first, and everyone else agrees. Fix by asking each attendee to record their independent judgement in writing before discussion opens.
- No record of initial disagreement. The minute reads as if the group agreed instantly. That is either a suspiciously good team or an inaccurate record; EQAs assume the latter.
- No follow-through to live cohorts. A standardised interpretation is agreed but no one goes back to check whether learners already assessed under the old interpretation need re-judgement.
- Standardisation and moderation collapsed into one meeting. The team is asked to both agree the interpretation and re-judge existing decisions in the same 90 minutes. Neither is done well.
- Chronic non-attendance uncorrected. The same two assessors miss every meeting; nothing changes. Sampling for those assessors should escalate until attendance follows.
Further reading
- Brooks & Kirk — What Is a Standardisation Meeting?
- BIAP — Best practices for assessor standardisation
- Cambridge Assessment — How can NVQ assessors’ judgements be standardised? (PDF)
CPD training on standardisation and moderation
Our Standardisation and Moderation in Vocational Assessment course explains what standardisation and moderation are, how they differ, and how to run meetings that actually align interpretation across an assessor team.
For lead IQAs and IQA teams, our Standardisation and Moderation for Internal Quality Assurers course covers standardising IQA practice itself — double and blind sampling of the same evidence by different IQAs, alignment across sites and centres, and EQA-facing records.
Related: IQA: Sampling Strategies and Monitoring · Providing Effective Feedback to Learners in Assessment
£9 per course. CPD accredited, 100 % online, verifiable e-certificate on completion. Pay for 2, get 3 — any 3 courses for £18.
Please note: these are awareness-level CPD courses. They develop your understanding and do not confer assessor or quality-assurer status; they are not TAQA or CAVA units or any Ofqual-regulated qualification. Where you need to be formally recognised as an assessor or internal quality assurer on a regulated qualification, the Level 3 CAVA or Level 4 IQA Award from City & Guilds, Pearson or another Ofqual-recognised awarding organisation is the route.