JCQ with baubles on

Highlights from a special festive episode of The Exam Man podcast released in December 2025.

Just before Christmas 2025 we spoke to Margaret Farragher, the Chief Executive Officer of JCQ. She is an experienced and respected leader across the public, private and voluntary sectors, with an impressive career dedicated to helping to ensure students and schools have the very best experience of exams.

We have a lot of people who listen to this podcast, but who haven't got anything to do with exams and quite often education as well. So could you sum up the work of JCQ and what you do for an audience that doesn't know anything about it? That would be really helpful.

JCQ is a membership organisation. So we have eight members, some of the larger awarding organisations who operate across the UK. And our aim is to ensure that we have arrangements in place that support fairness, consistency, and try to ensure that exams run smoothly for everyone across the UK. That’s for teaching staff, but very importantly for students. And we do try to avoid the situation of having lots of different guidance documents that schools and colleges would have to manage, which would of course potentially increase the potential for error, but also the burden. So we are a community interest company, we don't make a profit. We are funded every year by our members to deliver the work that's set out in our new strategy, which we published this September.

I assumed it was much bigger than that.

We focus very much on harnessing the expertise of our brilliant eight members to get them to work on whatever the problems of the day might be; so AI or cyber security, those sorts of challenges, to improve our guidance and make sure it's as clear as possible for schools and colleges, whilst also meeting regulatory conditions. All our members are regulated by the UK qualification regulators and together we're working on upholding public confidence in the UK exam system. So, for example, even the rules about cupboards being locked.  In a way we forget about that with all the threats of cybersecurity, but all of those things are obviously really important when it comes to Results Day, so that students can feel really proud of their qualifications and no one can challenge their integrity and they can move on to the next step in their journey.

That's a brilliant summary, Margaret.  Obviously with eight member organisations you're trying to coordinate action, aren't you? You're trying to put in place processes that are going to be common across those eight members. How challenging is that? Particularly because those members, although they're working together within the JCQ framework, are also to some extent in competition with each other as well?

It's really interesting because I often reflect on all the different organisations I've worked with where you might have hundreds of people all working in different teams and you get different cultures within an organisation. We're a very small team of only 10 staff.

That's one of the interesting things about JCQ that not many people know. So, with a tiny full-time, permanent body of staff of only 10 people, our members are absolutely key to everything that JCQ does. We have a network of about 300 very active members who volunteer their time, to be part of our different committees. We have about 25 committees, which sounds like a lot. It really is incredible to see the committees in action; people are very engaged. They're working on real problems in terms of whatever the issues might be. Is it malpractice, or developments in AI, or operational issues that everybody's getting ready for the next series, timetable issues? There’s real problem-solving in action in these committees.

So you've got these 300 colleagues from eight different organisations, all with their own culture, all with their own operational targets. But when we bring them into a JCQ committee we're very much asking them to think about what is best in terms of all schools and colleges from a JCQ perspective. So really asking them in many ways to take off their individual AO (Awarding Organisation) hat and put on their JCQ hat and think about, for example, if we produce this document, which is trying to set out key dates for VTQs (Vocational Technical Qualification) it's all a bit challenging and we're having to share, but isn't this really worthwhile to schools and colleges who are not only have to deal with the eight JCQ awarding organisations, but also often with many others. It's not uncommon for some colleges in particular to be dealing with at least 30 different awarding organisations.

It is really impressive to see colleagues willing to share expertise and our members have to chair these meetings, so they have to put themselves forward, and in many ways be quite brave. You're not only managing colleagues in your own organisation, but you're having to get this group of other awarding organisation colleagues to work together, perhaps on some new guidance, and work through some tricky issues where people might have differences of opinion. And you might have a deadline because we might have committed to producing some new guidance.

But the benefit to the awarding organisations must be great if you're part of that group as well. It must give a lot of alignment across the sector that you wouldn't really get in lots of other sectors. It's quite interesting as a model.

Yes. And we also started a survey of our committees, our committee members, and we've done that twice now, we're doing it every other year. We get fantastic feedback from the members who really enjoy the professional development they get. They see the challenge and they sort of feel that they are being stretched at times and that it can be challenging, but the benefits definitely outweigh any of those challenges for them. So that's a real positive, I think, about the committees. And I think working in an awarding organisation, having done it for years, is a lot of pressure. There's a lot that you're managing every day. A lot can go wrong. It feels very high stakes. You don't want to let students or teachers down. And I think to have a community where you can ask others who have got maybe different experience to you, have seen this problem before, really helps colleagues do the best they can for students and teachers.

That's really interesting. Margaret, I know that Exams Officers will want me to talk to you about inspections just quickly, because that's obviously a highlight of our year!   But I don’t really want to focus on the inspection itself, but find out more about the process that goes on around it.

So firstly could you talk a bit about how inspectors are prepared to carry out their function. What do they go through in advance of an exam season to prepare for that. And then also what the process is like afterwards, because I imagine that the inspections form a part of your process for amending and updating your regulations as well.

Could you just talk us through the sort of whole process of inspections?

As you touched on there, John, it's a cycle of continuous improvement. I guess at this time of year everybody's reflecting on the last annual cycle, on the feedback that we've had from centre inspectors, and thinking about that quite carefully. It's always really nice to see if things are going in the right direction, people getting through their inspections with no actions, or very minor issues to report. The feedback that comes through from the inspections is also really important and valuable in terms of thinking about what support are we, as JCQ, and the individual awarding organisations providing. Sometimes it's perhaps small things, like a misunderstanding of something and perhaps not realising one requirement means something in particular; so how can we make sure that as quickly as possible we help explain that, so that everybody feels prepared and has a good inspection experience and is learning from some of the lessons that we've learnt in the last cycle?

I suppose it's the time of year for kind of reflecting and thinking about some of the things that came through from last year, and thinking about some of the messages that we get about roles and responsibilities. I think some of these themes were echoed in our stakeholder survey about what does it feel like as an Exams Officer to be carrying the inspection for a school or college? Do we maybe need to think about the role of SLT in that process in terms of giving the Exams Officer the support that they need? Because it's a big, big thing to manage.

And then, at this point onwards, we're getting ready to do all the briefings. So the centre inspectors are getting together and thinking about getting ready for the inspections coming up for the summer series in particular. But of course, the cycle never really stops, does it? So we've just had the November series. We're trying always to improve and reflect on how we can do things differently.

Thinking about some of our access arrangement inspections, we’re trialling some different ways of working with a small number of schools at the moment to think about the conversations that we have about access arrangements. Is there anything we could do differently in terms of centre inspections that are looking at access arrangements in particular? And then, before we know it, we are in the summer series, and then we get the next round of feedback.

That's why we're quite keen to explore the timing of our guidance. Everything has happened quite fast, hasn't it? If we think about that cycle, and then the new guidance appears at the very beginning of September. Might it be helpful to just have a bit more time to reflect and share the themes that are coming through? To think about what changes would be most beneficial and useful, but also to make sure they're well understood, and then implement them for a subsequent academic year. So that way everybody is working together in terms of any changes that might happen to arrangements in light of inspections that have happened in the past, rather than at the moment.  It feels perhaps as though you've just got over one, and you feel like you've got to get ready for the next one, and you've probably seen the yellow highlighted changes which are telling you that you might need to prepare for some slightly different things this year.

But that's true as well from your perspective, isn't it? Because if the guidance is published in September, within about six weeks you're going to be sending out a whole load of inspectors into schools, aren't you, with this new guidance? Making sure that everyone is able to recognise what they need to recognise and making sure everything's being implemented properly, that's quite challenging for you guys as well.

I think it is. And look, I think we have to be realistic, don't we, about the reform that's coming?
Everybody will be getting ready for revisions to qualifications. So we need to support the whole system by thinking about more lead-in time to prepare for changes, to arrangements and to help prepare our inspectors to help you.  I think we need to take action to support your experience managing this as an Exams Officer, as well as perhaps your teaching colleagues who are getting used to new specs when they come in. It’s not about making the system more stressed.

Our key goal is to try and reduce the burden. So if this is something we can try to explore and help with a little bit in terms of the timing of our guidance, without in any way jeopardising anything in terms of the integrity and the confidence that there is in the system, we're really keen to do that. So there are lots of practical arrangements for us because I think we are quite used to the cycle of annual updates. We just need to explore what a different system might look like in terms of inviting feedback, having focus groups, exploring some of the implications, explaining the changes, providing more lead in time. But as you've hinted at, I think, John, having more time for everybody to prepare would we think, probably be a good thing.

Absolutely. How easy do you find it to recruit inspectors? Is that generally okay? Have there been challenges at all with that?

It's not an area of concern at the moment, but I think with many of these roles, as we know, sometimes we rely on a part of the population who might be retired and so on. We can never be complacent with these important roles. We need to make sure that we are attracting the right people into the role and that they feel committed to it and buy into our values in terms of what the inspection is about and what we hope to achieve from it. I suppose we continue to see it as a really important aspect of the JCQ job, if you like.

I would love to do it at some point.  I joke about getting my revenge…. and that is a joke! But seriously, it would be something I would be interested to do at some point. Not now. I haven't got time.

Reflecting on my time, having to do unannounced inspections as part of a role I had at QCA, it is hard, I think, on both sides. You know, you don't want to cause stress or anxiety, but the idea that it's unannounced means it is unannounced.  I think, when you'd done a few, it wasn't something you would really look forward to doing because you were very aware that it caused stress, regardless of how much you would try and put people at ease. Asking to see a teacher to say, can I see the tests locked away? They're just so worried something's going to go wrong and that the reputation of the school is at risk.

Anyway, maybe you'll get to try that at some point.

I always say it's a bit like going through airport security, in that even if you've done nothing wrong, you still feel nervous. It's just the nature of the beast, isn't it?

And at this time of year do you have a bit of downtime? Is it one of the quieter periods or not?

No, not really. I think probably anything is less busy for us than the summer, because we're so immersed in all of the work that goes into releasing results. So there's a week after GCSE and Level 1 and 2 VTQ results come out when I take a week to have a rest because you're pretty exhausted by that point. And then it's the new academic year. And then even though you think it will be a bit quieter this year, there's always something, isn't there?

We've got a lot of interesting developments with reforms. So all those things I thought I might get done before the Christmas holiday….my optimism is dwindling a little bit! But it's good in a way that we keep challenging ourselves. And there's quite a lot I hope we will achieve as a result of the stakeholder survey. We do want to be able to share - these are the things you said, and this is what we will do, and what we're looking at. So one of our big projects at the moment is to look at the JCQ website. That was another area of feedback - that some people said they found it difficult to find things. So yes, there's always something happening in the background, keeping us busy and occupied.

So Margaret, can you talk us through how you came to work at JCQ, what you'd been doing before that, and why working with JCQ appealed to you?

So I started with JCQ in 2023. Before that, I'd been working in an awarding organisation. I guess I've got a few connections with JCQ over my career, but the biggest connection was as responsible officer for qualifications at the Council for Curriculum Exams and Assessment in Northern Ireland, and part of that job required being on the JCQ board. So in 2018, having moved to Northern Ireland to take on the job of Director of Education, I also became a JCQ board member and worked with my fellow board members and Michael Turner, who was then the Director General, on all manner of issues that were facing JCQ at that time.

The thing that really struck me then was the brilliant collaboration that happens across the eight members of JCQ, very much behind the scenes on all the big issues facing the UK education sector. So, that opportunity was a really pivotal moment for me. Prior to that, in my many different roles, I had spent a lot of time regulating awarding organisations.  I started at the School Curriculum and Assessment Authority back in 1995, which then became QCA and then QCDA, when Ofqual was established. In those roles, I spent many years working on all the different qualification reforms that we had during that period, and working closely with awarding organisations to implement policy. And one of the things I worked on during that period was the Equalities Bill.

It's really interesting for me now to look at all the work that JCQ does to support schools and colleges managing access arrangements and to think back to that period on the Equalities Bill, when we were trying to ensure that qualifications were as accessible as possible. I'm really proud of the fact that JCQ plays such an important role in ensuring that all students can access qualifications and show their potential. And I know that's a challenging area for Exams Officers and SENCOs, as we've just recently had some really useful feedback through our first stakeholder survey. We are very committed to continuing to support Exams Officers and SENCOs with that important area of our work.

What was that feedback like, Margaret? How did that process go?

Yes, well, it's quite scary, isn't it? You say, we should do a survey, and the first survey JCQ has ever done in our long history. We reached a moment where I suddenly thought, is this a good idea?
It could be really, really tough to take, but it's really important to get the feedback and listen to the issues, whether they're good, bad, or ugly. And pleasingly, the feedback was very positive, in terms of is JCQ a professional organisation? Very, very high positive ratings for those areas. We're really pleased with that, but obviously we've got to continue to be professional and help schools and colleges in a timely manner and give high quality advice and information.

We did get feedback on certain areas of our work. We did invite comments. I wanted comments on the different shared services that JCQ offers. You will be familiar with the different JCQ shared services, but we, the awarding organisations, help fund really important services like Access Arrangements Online, the National Centre Number Register, things like the Secure Data Portal, which helps us analyse qualification results so that we can do the really important briefings that we do on results days. So we wanted comment and invited qualitative feedback.

And in terms of some of the feedback that we got there, we heard some positive things about our guidance. It's really helpful, really useful to have annual updates highlighted. But some of the feedback was around the timeliness of our updates. We all race into the new academic year, don't we? And all of a sudden, it's Christmas. Perhaps you're doing the November series and then straight into January, you're getting ready for the summer series. And you've probably got lots of VTQ series happening in between. I think what we heard was that managing the annual updates right at the beginning of the academic year is hard. So whilst we highlight the updates, I think if we think about all the things going on in the education system - and we’re now getting ready for some more curriculum and assessment reform, as well as VTQ reform - we really want to think carefully about that feedback and consider whether we could slow down our updates.

Would it be helpful to take a bit more time once we've done an update to our really important guidance documents, to invite comments and reflections, meet with colleagues, meet with Exams Officers, SENCOs and SLTs? We did get a lot of feedback about SLT's role in supporting the exam system, and perhaps bring them together so they can hear their different perspective because I'm not always sure they have a lot of opportunity to do that. And then think about the implications for the next update to our guidance and about that period of notice that we provide. Would it be helpful to share the guidance and say this will be coming in next academic year so that everybody has an opportunity to think about the implications of the changes? I guess I've been reflecting on having worked on qualifications specifically; if you change, you don't change a GCSE spec every year. Everybody would absolutely hate that.

And when you think about it, you know the qualification specs are aimed at a particular group - the teacher who has to teach them. But often, I think, with our JCQ guidance, it's affecting multiple layers within a school or college. It's having a big impact, potentially, on the teacher. They do need to be aware of it. But it's having a massive impact for an Exams Officer who's perhaps managing large numbers of students in a centre. Plus the SLT does have an important responsibility to have the oversight of all of the arrangements. And then, of course, SENCOs, who are trying to ensure that qualifications are accessible and that suitable, reasonable adjustments are made. So I think, in a way, with all of that complexity, it's perhaps more important to ensure that we're giving schools and colleges that appropriate lead-in time to get used to the changes and perhaps understand them.

We've been talking as a team and with our board - that perhaps taking a bit more time to explain the changes, and maybe what's not changed - is also really important for all of the different people that we rely upon to help keep the exam system safe and uphold the confidence that I think we do have in the system.

So much in schools is about timing.  It sounds like that was really, really helpful feedback there.

Have you started almost doing this already? Because I’ve noticed a few things over the last couple of years. There was something around AI and the use of AI in assessments, where I certainly remember one year, when the inspectors came in to look at us, they were talking to us about it in advance. It wasn't you have to have a policy, it has to be in place now and we have to know exactly what you're doing. It was more like, by this time next year, we need you to be working towards this. Is that the sort of thing that you're talking about - giving schools that lead-in time?

Yes, that's exactly it. The Centre Inspection Service, which JCQ runs for its members to avoid schools and colleges having lots of different inspectors turn up to check things, is another sort of shared service that I think we heard from the schools and colleges that responded that they really value, and that it felt more supportive.

The Centre Inspection Service teams which operate across England, Northern Ireland and Wales certainly try to make it a supportive conversation about preparing for the exams. In addition there are the kinds of checks of secure storage, and that is important. And in a previous life, I used to have to do that to ensure that Key Stage 3 test material was stored securely. And even those inspections are really helpful in terms of feeding into the process to hopefully improve guidance and support everybody.

But you're right, with the AI guidance - and AI has been a challenging area for us all, hasn't it? - it's so rapidly evolving and changing. So I'm really pleased that you felt that in terms of covering aspects of AI policy, the inspection was more forward looking and helping you prepare for the future. The AI guidance that we have produced over the last couple of years, because of the evolving nature of AI, has been shared with schools and colleges mid-academic year. Interestingly, we did get feedback that that's unhelpful. It's not that we didn't know that, it's just because of the challenges in terms of getting it ready, that has been difficult. But again, that's an area that we've now committed to updating at the beginning of the academic year. So we're going to try really hard, with our guidance, not to be sharing things mid-academic year that affect the academic year that we are in.

So we've definitely heard that feedback. That feedback was noted and it was a fair comment in terms of thinking about the challenges that you're facing in the academic year.  And even with the AI guidance, we'll try to time things a bit better for everybody, so they're more manageable. That's unless, of course, there's a really important regulatory or compliance issue that we've got to respond to.

Do please keep giving us feedback. It's really useful to hear what you think needs to change or improve. We did get a sense from those that commented in the survey that they would like more shared services. I'm really interested in that idea, and I know the board is always willing to explore what else could we do across the membership.

But I guess the other key thing that's a new development for JCQ is that we've launched our associate membership, which is a different level of membership. Often when I'm visiting schools and colleges, I will be asked, why can't other AOs be part of JCQ? Well, the good news is they can now. For those colleges who feel it's difficult with the 30 different awarding organisations, associate membership allows other awarding organisations to join if they want to and hook into those shared services and be part of the guidance documents. That's maybe something to watch for in the new year. We've got OCNNI (Open College Network Northern Ireland) who have joined this year. We have another application in the process. Maybe we’ll see, with others joining, if schools and colleges feel that reduces the burden a little bit more. That's the aim of that system.

I think Exams Officers are going to find it really interesting and reassuring how considered the approach is and how thoughtful it is throughout the year. And really open to feedback. It's really good to get that message out there, isn't it?

I think you've got to take everyone with you. You're in that constant balancing act, aren't you, of trying to ensure consistency for people, but also trying to adapt to new challenges and new things that are out there.

It's a big job you have, Margaret. I hope you're going to get some time to watch Home Alone and sit in pyjamas eating chocolate, over the next few weeks.

I'm really looking forward to the Christmas break. Even though we've got the January results coming out, there's a little bit of quiet space for mince pies.

I think it's because schools actually close and everyone can refuel or get more exhausted from doing nothing.

Thanks so much. It was really lovely to speak to you and really interesting as well.

Lovely to speak to you too. Thank you for having me!

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