Principal Examiner – Role Description
Purpose
To produce appropriate assessment materials, including question papers and marking schemes, and
be responsible for the standardisation of its marking.
Main duties
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To produce a working draft question paper in accordance with the syllabus specification,
ensuring parity of standards across optional questions on the paper, and ensuring the level
of difficulty is consistent with the qualification and with previous years.
To produce a marking scheme for the draft paper demonstrating the syllabus coverage, links
to study materials and how the assessment criteria has been met.
To attend the question paper peer review meeting and to revise the paper in accordance
with the decisions taken at the meeting.
To acknowledge and take action in relation to feedback from previous examination sessions,
including recommendations from relevant monitoring reports.
To conduct a standardisation meetings with examiners marking the paper to ensure that
they understand both the administrative procedures and the mark scheme, and will mark
consistently and accurately.
To supervise the work, monitor the standards and report on the work of examiners allocated
to them, and to take steps to ensure accuracy and consistency. This includes:
o Re-marking samples of scripts from examiners;
o Reviewing a sample of marked examination scripts and all borderline candidate
scripts;
o Reporting back to examiners about the consistency of their marking;
o Being available on the phone/email to examiners for advice and guidance;
o Recommending scaling of examiners’ marking, where necessary.
To recommend the appointment, training and reappointment of examiners.
To provide a written report to the Chief Principal Examiner at the end of each examination
session summarising
o the results and pass rates
o standard deviation statistics
o candidates’ performance on each question within the paper
o any anomalies in the marking that may materially affect the examination session;
To undertake remarking and report writing following result enquiries and appeals.
To recommend to IRM proposals for changes to the syllabus.
To attend specific examination training events organised by IRM.
Knowledge, Qualifications and Experience
Essential
 Expert knowledge of the module area
 A minimum of 5 year’s risk management experience
 Previous experience in higher education and/or a professional body of
marking or evaluating assessments
Desirable
 Able to demonstrate being up to date in educational assessment
methodology.
 Teaching, tutoring or coaching experience
 Hold an IRM qualification
Personal Qualities
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High level of attention to detail
Able to work to tight deadlines
Able to give and take constructive criticism and feedback
Able to lead and motivate teams
IT literate; able to compile and check statistics
Commitment to CPD to ensure knowledge and expertise in risk
management is maintained
Tenure
2 years, renewable by mutual agreement.
Fee
Fee per examination session: £1,000 plus £4.50 per moderated script. Reasonable and appropriate
expenses, e.g. travel, postage etc. will also be met.
Appointed by
Operations Director in consultation with Head of Qualifications and Assessment.
Reporting to
Chief Principal Examiner on the quality of examination papers and marking.
Head of Qualifications and Assessment for contractual and administrative items.