A consortium is a partnership of local schools, colleges, training centres and employers that is approved by the DCSF Gateway process to provide Diploma lines of learning.

Key features:

• Students' results, awards and progress are produced and shared across a number of institutions within each consortium.
• The Diploma aggregation service supports exams officers in the collation of results and awards.
• Local and national support from QCA helps exams officers work collaboratively and plan for successful Diploma administration.

What's happening and when

• September 2008: first consortia began teaching the lines of learning.
• September 2009: new consortia begin teaching one or more of the first ten lines of learning. Existing consortia may add additional lines of learning.
• September 2010: further increases in the number of consortia and increase in number of lines of learning to fourteen.
• September 2011: final three lines of learning are introduced, taking the total to seventeen.

Changes to look out for

• More interaction with other institutions in consortia.

Qualification awards, work experience and personal, learning and thinking skills evidence need to be gathered from around the consortium and shared among a number of awarding bodies.

What you should do now

In the year before first teaching starts, meet and exchange details with colleagues in other centres in your consortium. Work with your QCA centre support officer to establish a network of exams officers within your consortium.