The Data Fellowship/Advanced Data Fellowship/Software Engineering assessment method in the UK includes two components: 1. A project report. 2. Presentation and questioning based on the project report. A work-based project involves you completing a relevant and defined piece of work that has a real business benefit. The project must be undertaken after you have gone through gateway.

You will prepare your Work-Based Project (WBP) report and presentation once you have passed gateway. You must submit an electronic WBP report and presentation to the End Point Assessment Organisation (EPAO) after a maximum of 8 weeks (40 working days) of the End Point Assessment (EPA) start date or 9 weeks (45 working days) for Software Engineering. To allow for accurate word count checks, all project reports should be submitted in a .docx/ppt format. Following submission of your project and presentation, questioning will take place with an independent assessor during your EPA interview.

The project report is subject to a maximum word count as specified in the assessment plan. A tolerance of plus or minus 10% is allowed. For example: word count limit is 3,500 so the word count can be between 3,150 and 3,850 words. The assessment plan specifies what is or is not included in the word-count. If the word count falls outside the specified range, the assessment method will be automatically graded as a fail. You must not use the appendices to contravene the word count; any appendices that introduce additional explanatory context or new information will be disregarded by the independent assessor.

Depending on the End Point Assessment Organisation (EPAO) you are registered with, your work based project have the following deadline:

Accelerate People - This is 23:59 on the day of the deadline. However, the working hours of the Accelerate People team are until 17:30, so you are strongly advised to send in your project and presentation to Accelerate People, [email protected] during working hours, so the team can help you resolve any issues urgently.

The deadline is strict; if you press send at 23:59 but the email arrives in the AP inbox at midnight, you will receive a technical fail and your interview will be cancelled.

1st for EPA - This is 23:59 on the day of the deadline. You will need to upload your project and presentation on EPA Pro: Instructions on how to submit this are below -

We strongly suggest uploading both your project and presentation during working hours so we can help resolve any issues urgently. Failure to submit this will result in a fail and your interview will be canceled. If you have not received your EPA Pro login please reach out to us so we can support you.

If you do not submit both the project report and presentation, you will automatically fail and your interview will be canceled.

Yes, you will fail if you do not submit both your project and presentation and your interview will be cancelled.

If you are registered with Accelerate People, you should email [email protected] directly with the updated submission, but it must be before your original deadline. If you are registered with 1st for EPA or BCS, please reach out to us and we can support you.

Yes, you can change your work based project before the deadline. If you are registered with Accelerate People, you should email [email protected] directly so they can make a note of this. However, you cannot get an extension if your project changes. So, if you want to change your project, you need to be able to complete it by the original deadline. If you are making a change, make sure you will still be able to demonstrate all grading criteria in your WBP.

Extensions are only granted for serious illness/bereavement or medical time away from work. If you have been away from the workplace due to any of these reasons, evidence from your line manager is needed to support a special considerations application, which we will submit to the EPAO on behalf of you. Please contact us with supporting documentation and confirmation from your line manager and we can process this.

Special consideration is an adjustment that compensates apprentices who were suffering from an incapacitating illness or condition, or who suffered significant disadvantage at the time of the assessment, due to time away from the workplace.

For the avoidance of doubt, a special consideration should be applied when performance in an End-Point Assessment is affected by circumstances outside the control of the apprentice - e.g. personal illness and/or injury (lasting seven consecutive days or more), bereavement, personal circumstances causing serious disruption during the assessment (lasting seven days or more).
- Special consideration will not be applied in the following circumstances:

- Part of the assessment was missed due to personal arrangements, including

unauthorised absence and holidays.

- No evidence was supported by the employer/training provider indicating that an

apprentice was affected by illness, injury, bereavement or other indisposition at the time of the assessment.

- Difficulties experienced during the assessment that has not led to significant time out of the workplace or can reasonably be considered to have affected the outcome of an assessment.

Any annual leave or other absence from work during your work based project period will not affect your project due date - annual leave can’t be given as a reason for extension.