Networking at all levels
 

Jan Martin MBE attended the recent very successful Edexcel conferences in London and Manchester attracting over 1000 exams office staff. Jan reported that Edexcel welcomed the important contribution the EOA made, both on promoting better customer service from Awarding Bodies and on encouraging CPD throughout the exam office workforce.  There will be a full report on these events later in the summer.

In contrast to these rather large events were two local exam office meetings run by Elizabeth Devereux, a QCDA CSO based in the south east of the country. These smaller events were attended by various Awarding Bodies, including the EOA and marked an important change in how our community must view itself in the future. Gone will be the mass QCDA events and CSO cover with a need to encourage and develop a much more local, self-supportive exam office community driven from the grass roots level. 
 

In many parts of the country the QCDA team have created and maintained local exam office groups. AQA have created a very successful regional support network and there may be more on the way including some from Edexcel. But what people want is support and help to run their own meetings and that has always been at the forefront of the EOA strategy which is to build a more self-supportive sustainable community. It is so important to attend one of these group meetings and not let any die or disappear. Indeed the EOA is committed to creating even more. So let us know how we can help support you setting up a local network group.