With the New Year in sight, there has never been a better time to look at changing your career. What better choice than to become an Assessor? Now you may be thinking where on earth do I fit that in around my busy schedule? You’ll be surprised to hear that Assessor qualifications are flexible enough to fit around any hectic lifestyle. Even if you just have one hour a day, that will quickly enable you to progress and become an Assessor.
So now that we have convinced you that you do have time to complete an Assessor qualification, what makes this career so appealing? Here are 3 reasons why you should become an Assessor.
Work From Home, At Your Pace
Most NVQ Assessor jobs are 100% home-based at the moment. Of course as restrictions ease this will change slightly when travelling to learners is required. Travelling still only makes up about half (or less) of your hours. In some cases, you won’t need to leave the comfort of your own home.
Let’s use the 50% travelling time as an example. What this means is that for just over 2 working days will be spent on the road, but the rest of the week is at home. Take off your current daily commute to work (which is probably a lot less economical than being on the road consistently for a couple of days), and your stress levels will also be much lower!
Increased Pay
This benefit alone should be enough to persuade you to consider a career in assessing. The average salary of an Assessor is around £32,500 per year. Of course this depends on lots of external factors including where you live; the experience you have; and the employer themselves.
Remember you always need to work out your cost of living and compare this with the money being offered for a job. You have to be able to live within your means, but if becoming an Assessor is the pay-rise you are willing to work towards, then the sooner you get started the better!
More Apprenticeships, More Jobs
You will have probably noticed lots of talk about apprenticeships during the past year, with the Government providing lots of funding to encourage businesses to take on apprentices too. What this means is that there are more people undertaking apprenticeships. How does this correlate with becoming an Assessor though? Having this qualification can open up a few different doors:
IEPA (Independent End-Point Assessor)
EPA (End-Point Assessor)
EPAO (End-Point Assessment Organisation)
All apprenticeships require the input of an End-Point Assessor who is responsible for carrying out the final assessments with the apprentice, to ensure the Apprenticeship Standard has been met. As long as you are qualified and experienced within the specific sector in which you wish to assess, you could go down the route of becoming an IEPA too. An IEPA is a bit more specialised than a general Assessor though. If you would like to find out more about this then give us a call on 01205 805155.
So there you have it, the top 3 reasons to become an Assessor. Whether you are looking to take the next step in your career, or are looking for more of a work-life balance then the time to become an Assessor is now!
How infuriating is it when you buy a product or service from a company and then see it on sale the next day?! Even worse – when it’s 70% off in a Black Friday sale.
When you enrol on a course with Brooks and Kirk, you won’t have to worry about seeing it on sale the next day. You certainly won’t have to wait until the last Friday of November every year just to get some value for your hard-earned money. Our accredited courses stay the same price all year, every year. We believe offering excellent value for money should happen all day every day.
Why are Brooks and Kirk courses such excellent value?
At Brooks and Kirk, we are open, honest and transparent about our training and the way we deliver our courses. We don’t have sneaky extra costs or find reasons to charge you things that you would expect to be included. That’s the reason hundreds of learners have trained to become Assessors, IQAs, and Tutors with us over the past years and why we are the trusted training provider for some of the largest companies in the country.
What do you get with Brooks and Kirk?
We provide you with everything you need to pass your course and it is all included in the course fees you pay.
Unlimited support from our team of Assessors
A maximum of 10 working day turnaround for your coursework
The ability to complete your entire course online*
Access to Learners to assess throughout your course – we are the only specialist training provider that offer this
A 100% chance of passing your course. You can resubmit your work until you get full marks!
*Subject to the course you are completing
If you are thinking of going with another training provider because their course looks cheaper just ask them this one simple question,
“Is everything I need to complete the course included in the price and will I get unlimited support to help me pass?”
If the answer is no then enrol with Brooks and Kirk, where you know everything is included and you’re always going to get our best price guaranteed. Who needs a Black Friday sale! Enrol on our Assessor course, IQA course, or Tutor course and skill yourself up for the new year. If you’d like to find out more, give us a call on 01205 805 155 or pop us an email to training@brooksandkirk.co.uk.
Becoming an Assessor is one of the most rewarding career choices, as well as being incredibly flexible so you can work around your other day-to-day commitments. If you have carried out your research you will probably be aware that the qualification you need to become an Assessor is the Level 3 Certificate in Assessing Vocational Achievement (CAVA). This will qualify you to assess the competency of learners both in their place of work, and within learning environments too. During this qualification, you need to access to learners to assess.
If you take the teaching qualification (the Level 3 Award in Education & Training), you may be surprised to hear that you don’t have to work with real learners. This can be carried out in a simulation-style environment. However, for CAVA, you will need to work with learners who are working towards real, accredited qualifications. This can be difficult as essentially you need an assessing qualification in order to get an assessing job; but you need to be able to work in assessing in order to gain the full qualification. All a bit confusing, isn’t it?
Access to Learners – CAVA
In total, there are 3 units within CAVA:
Unit 1 – Understanding the Principles and Practices of Assessment
Unit 2 – Assessing Occupational Competence in the Work Environment
and last but not least, Unit 3 – Assessing Vocational Skills, Knowledge and Understanding
The first unit is more knowledge-based and therefore you don’t need access to learners to assess. Units 2 and 3 do require you to have access to learners, but don’t worry – we the solution! If you undertake the CAVA with Brooks and Kirk, we guarantee to provide you with learners for the assessments. Usually, you would be required to attend a one-day session at one of our offices. However this is currently being delivered online due to COVID-19, and will continue to be online for the next academic year (21/22).
Using Your Own Learners
You can enrol onto our CAVA course and use your own learners if you wish to. You will need access to two learners that are studying in your area of occupational competence, and also a qualified Internal Quality Assurer that can assess you assessing them. In terms of accessing these learners, we would recommend you try the following:
Use learners at your place of work
The learners that you use for your qualification don’t necessarily have to be your learners – they just need to be studying in the area you want to assess in. A minimum of two observations will be required where you will be marked on how you assess learners. Many Assessors in training like to be in control and create a situation where they are able to achieve all outcomes with just having two learners. Others require more observations in order to ensure all the criteria are met, it just depends on the situation. Either option is absolutely fine.
Volunteer at your local college
Most places welcome extra resources and will be more than happy to take on volunteer trainee assessors. Now if you have a full-time job currently and are also training to become an Assessor you may be thinking you don’t have time for all this extra work. Don’t worry, you don’t need to put in really long hours of volunteering. You just need to get to know the learners (as this will help your observation go more smoothly!), understand what you are assessing and organise the paperwork too. Finally, you will need time to undertake a minimum of two observations for your qualification.
Start your qualification whilst applying for assessing roles
If you are working towards an Assessor qualification, this will be more than enough to convince potential employers that you are serious about becoming an Assessor. This puts you in a good position to start applying for Assessor positions. Most organisations understand the process of becoming a fully qualified Assessor, and will be aware that you need learners in order to complete the final two units. Even if you just start applying for roles once you have passed the knowledge unit that should be absolutely fine. You can simply pick up the other two units once you have found learners to work with.
Remember, if you are unable to find learners to assess yourself then we are always here as a back up at Brooks and Kirk and are more than happy to provide you with the learners you need in order to complete your Assessor qualification. For more information on this, please give us a call on 01205 805155 or send us an email to training@brooksandkirk.co.uk.
Here at Brooks and Kirk, we have delivered our assessor, IQA, and tutor courses to many organisations that want their staff to become in-house assessors/IQAs. These organisations come from all sorts of industries, including healthcare; construction; hair and beauty; customer services, and many more. This has become more of a common occurrence over the years as more business’ realise the benefits of in-house assessor training. So what exactly are those benefits? Why should your business start looking at in-house training?
Cutting the Costs
At the end of the day, one of the most important aspects of running a business is the costs. By setting up a training division within your organisation, there would consequently be no need to outsource training from external providers. You will find yourselves saving thousands of pounds in the long run, all by delivering training in-house. It’s all about getting a better ROI!
Quality Training
When your organisation looks to train members of staff, you’ll want their training to be as relevant to their job role and your business as possible. So who would be better placed to deliver that training, than someone who has years of experience working in your business? By having in-house assessors at your organisation, they will know how your team works like the back of their hand; pair that alongside our highly recommended assessor course, and you’ve got yourself a training division of the highest quality.
More Productive Workforce
With your high performing training division comes highly skilled employees. It has been proven time after time, that in-house assessors can drive the productivity of the workforce. The reason for this is pretty simple; the training that members of staff receive from in-house assessors is more relevant. They will tend to develop their skills and organisational knowledge much quicker than someone who was trained at the local college.
Why Train with Brooks and Kirk?
Throughout our 20+ years of trading, as well as helping thousands of individuals to gain their assessor, IQA or tutor qualifications, we have worked with some fantastic organisations to train their members of staff. This includes IBM, Activate Learning, Options Skills, Prospero Teaching, Parenta, and The National Pharmacy Association (NPA).
Given that we originally started out as a Healthcare Training and Consultancy Provider, we are especially proud to say that we are the dedicated Assessor Training provider for over 15 different NHS Trusts across the country.
In more recent years as End-Point Assessments have grown, we have trained Independent End-Point Assessors for the likes of NOCN, DSW and Elite Training Services.
So whatever industry your organisation is within, and whatever the size or location; Brooks and Kirk can train your staff to become in-house assessors, IQAs, and tutors. Request a quote for your organisation below, or give us a call on 01205 805 155.
So it’s probably time to address the Ofsted report we swept aside last year. Some of you may have seen it, some of you may not. Those of you who have seen it will know exactly what we’re talking about here. On the surface, it doesn’t look great. But when you take a more thorough look into their findings, you actually find that it’s extremely positive. Allow us to explain…
Ofsted Learner View Results
Now, whilst Ofsted’s “official” report graded us at ‘Requires Improvement’ level, our learners that responded to Ofsted’s survey had a very different opinion to express. Quite the opposite in fact. The Learner View Results are nowhere near as easy to access as the Ofsted Report itself for whatever reason… but regardless, we were really happy with the results. We did publish the Learner Review findings at the time but we’d hate for you to have missed out. So, here they are again!
That’s right – even though Ofsted says we ‘require improvement’, 100% of our learners would recommend us to a friend!
Why Do We ‘Require Improvement’?
Despite what our learners have to say about us, Ofsted did unfortunately report us as ‘Requires Improvement’. Now, there are some points on the Key Findings of the Ofsted report that we would like to address;
Who likes deadlines anyway?
“The proportion of learners who achieve their main learning aims and complete them within the planned timescale is low”
First of all, one of the most common reasons why learners choose Brooks and Kirk for their assessor training is because we don’t impose start and end dates. Our learners love the flexibility of the way our courses run, and how they can come and go from doing their work as they please. We don’t agree with unnecessary time constraints. There are a lot of instances where applying time constraints to a course can unfairly restrict people from furthering their education. Therefore, there isn’t a ‘planned timescale’ for learners to achieve their main learning aims within. Hence, the ‘requires improvement’ grade here.
The only time we were ever forced to impose a deadline was when we discontinued the offering of Advanced Learning Loans. So, learners that had funded their courses using the learner loan facility, were told they must complete by a certain date; this was no choice of our own and affected learners understood this. Since then, we absolutely intend to stay free of deadlines and as flexible as possible.
Proactive Support instead of Reactive
“Until recently, assessors have not focused sufficiently on ensuring that learners make good progress towards their main qualification aim”;
“Assessors do not set clear targets for learners’ personal and vocational skills development”;
“Managers do not make sufficient analysis and use of available data to identify trends in performance by all groups of learners and plan improvements to the provision”.
All of the above comments have the same reasoning behind them; they all relate to our time constraints and the way in which we offered support.
Obviously, it’s hard to measure the achievement rates for roll-on roll-off courses. This means that providing our learners don’t withdraw themselves, they will always complete their course. But Ofsted needed to see strict start dates, end dates and completion rates. This simply wasn’t possible – and so, ‘Required Improvement’.
Before taking on a new member of staff, we always encouraged our learners to take advantage of the unlimited tutor support that we offer. We appreciated however, that some learners were nervous about making the first call. So, we grew the Brooks and Kirk team.
Although we had already changed the way we offered support prior to the inspection, this wasn’t taken into account. The Faculty Administrator had only been with us a few months at that time. Unfortunately, this wasn’t long enough for Ofsted to measure the value of her role within Brooks and Kirk. It really is as simple as that.
Our Faculty Administrator, Sharon ensures that each individual learner’s progress is tracked on a regular basis. She loves to talk. In fact, we can’t keep her off the phones! So motivating learners is one of her strong points. This also provides her with the opportunity to identify any areas for which learners may require support in. If you’re a current learner, then I’m sure you will have had the pleasure of chatting with Sharon already.
Finally, it’s also worth noting; many of our learners are completing the CAVA to start a new career. More often than not, they are also working through their qualification whilst in full-time employment. Therefore, they start with the understanding that they have as long as they want to complete the course and do not want to be pestered about logging in and doing some work.
Strengths
Meanwhile, on the strengths side of the Ofsted report, we actually received some wonderful comments from them…
“Managers offer a good range of qualifications to all learners that meet local, regional and national needs and attract adults into learning”.
“Learners enjoy their courses and benefit from participation in learning, such as progress into employment or promotion”.
“Many learners achieve valuable additional qualifications to enhance their career prospects”.
“Training for staff is well planned. Assessors receive good training and support to improve their practice”.
So it’s not ALL bad, ay?
Our Learner’s Comments
There was another section on the Learner View Report that we didn’t mention earlier. This section was where learners could leave anonymous comments on Brooks and Kirk overall. There were sooooo many comments, but we’ve handpicked a few for you to have a look at. Here’s what some of them said:
All staff that I have dealt with have been extremely helpful, respectful, efficient and professional.
Although they ‘teach’ online (which was what I wanted as this gives me the flexibility to study whenever I choose) I still felt they gave the ‘personal’ touch often lacking on online courses. I also felt they cared about my progress and was even phoned on a few occasions when it seemed I was unclear about some of the feedback I received from them.
Convenient as I was able to work when I could. I then got feedback quickly and could act on this. It was clear what I had to do from my assignments and I had hints of places to look for the answers if I was unsure.
Enthusiastic and knowledgeable staff who are able to reply to any query quickly. I liked the fact that my assessed work was always returned with constructive feedback which was worded in a positive way and always directed me to resources which enabled me to develop my research skills to further my development. I was always encouraged to challenge my own learning which was highly beneficial to me.
Flexibility to complete the course whilst working full time.
It fits around my personal circumstances, I receive alerts through my email (phone) and can access it anywhere I need where internet is accessible.
It’s very flexible, and encourages you to set your own pace, which removes unnecessary stress.
The understanding of learners circumstances that might hinder their studies and the support the assessors give is unbelievable.
It doesn’t sound like a learning provider that ‘Requires Improvement’ if you ask us.
Anyhow, even if Ofsted weren’t big on the compliments, our Learners certainly were. And that’s what counts the most. If you want, you can take a look at the whole Learner View Results document and see all of the comments for yourself!
