Continuing Your Education After Your CAVA Course

, , , , 0

The journey to becoming an Assessor can feel like a long one. Upon completion of the Level 3 Certificate in Assessing Vocational Achievement (CAVA), you are now qualified to assess learners in both their place of work and in learning environments. Congratulations by the way! This qualification alone can open up lots of doors; particularly if you are working towards an internal promotion within your current company.

However, there are a few other routes that you can go down following achieving your CAVA qualification. You can continue your education by becoming an IQA; go down the Education & Training path by studying the AET course; or, you could even take the step up to become an End-Point Assessor. With so many different options to choose from we thought it would be good to look in-depth at all of these choices.

Becoming an IQA

You might not feel ready to go back into full-time employment upon completion of your CAVA qualification. Why not take the time to improve your skills further and become an IQA (Internal Quality Assurer)? If you are looking to become an End-Point Assessor, you are usually required to hold one of the IQA qualifications anyway.

In terms of IQA courses, you have a few options.

Lead IQA Qualification (3 Units)

The course we would ultimately recommend is the Level 4 Certificate in Leading the Internal Quality Assurance of Assessment Processes and Practice. Better known as (and much easier to say); the Lead IQA course. Our reason behind the strong recommendation for this is because it equips you with all the skills necessary to not only quality assure qualifications; but also lead and manage the whole quality assurance process. If you’re not looking to lead and manage, then you may better suit the…

IQA Award (2 Units)

The Level 4 Award in the Internal Quality Assurance of Assessment Processes and Practice is closest to what was known as the ‘Internal Verifier’ qualification. This award gives you all the knowledge and skills you need to quality assure assessments and assessment decisions. This doesn’t qualify you to be the centre lead or quality nominee. So, if that is something you’re interested in, we would recommend the Lead IQA mentioned above.

IQA Award (1 Unit)

The great thing is that if you aren’t sure whether to go down the IQA route, you can always complete the Level 4 Award in Understanding the Internal Quality Assurance of Assessment Processes & Practice as a bit of a taster course. Whilst this qualification won’t allow you to internally quality assure assessment, it will give you a basic understanding of IQA.

Becoming an IQA can not only be very financially rewarding (with salaries in the region of £23K – £35K), it can also help to improve your overall CPD. As an Assessor, you will already know the importance of keeping your CPD up to date in order to improve your skills and knowledge, and an IQA qualification can really help with this.

Finally, even if you don’t actually want to become an Internal Quality Assurer, completing the IQA course will really help to improve your assessing skills. You will learn how assessments are quality assured; which means you can pass this knowledge onto your learners, and help them achieve higher grades. It can also help identify any weaknesses in your own assessment practices, and give you some ideas on how to improve these.

Going Into Education & Training

You may have already read our blog about combining AET with CAVA (if not, we recommend it!) but we want to recap on this. The main reason for completing the Level 3 Award in Education & Training is to get you on the career path to becoming a teacher. This qualification will give you an insight into the roles and responsibilities, as well as educating you on how to plan and deliver teaching sessions.

One of the main benefits of studying the AET after CAVA is that you will become a much more employable person. Not only will you be able to assess learners, but you will also be qualified to teach them as well. So rather than a company having to hire an external assessor, you can do both roles.

We’ve ensured that our Education and Training course goes hand-in-hand with the CAVA course; so much so, that some of the tasks cross-over with one another. This means that if you’ve completed your CAVA course with us, you’ve also already done a few AET tasks as well! You’ve given yourself a head start without even knowing.

Becoming an End-Point Assessor

If End-Point Assessment is a route you’ve considered, then at minimum you need to hold the CAVA qualification. You need the knowledge and skills that this course delivers in order to become an Independent End-Point Assessor. End-Point Assessors are always in demand, so it is one of the most secure career choices you can take. Having said that, there is quite a significant difference in the way a traditional assessor works, VS. the way an End-Point Assessor works. Because of this, we designed our Award in End-Point Assessment Principles and Practice.

Our EPA Award is a 6 hour, all online, verified CPD course exclusive to Brooks and Kirk. As we developed it with trainee and qualified Assessors like yourself in mind, it gives you the knowledge and skills that differentiate the ‘traditional’ assessor from ‘End-Point’ assessors.

Flexibility is also one of the main reasons people choose to become End-Point Assessors. Whether you decide to go down the freelance Assessor route, or work directly with an End-Point Assessment Organisation, you will likely still have the flexibility to choose your own working hours to suit your lifestyle. The demand for End-Point Assessors is always high, and this is only expected to continue to grow; so job opportunities will always be there. At the end of the day students and apprentices are always learning, and their qualifications always need assessing!

Brooks & Kirk Can Help

At Brooks & Kirk we are focused on helping our learners wherever possible. In fact, we have exclusive offers for returning CAVA learners in order to help you on the next stage of your Assessor journey. As a returning CAVA learner, we can offer you:

  1. £40 off the Level 3 Award in Education & Training
  2. £50 off the Level 4 Certificate in Leading the Internal Quality Assurance of Assessment Processes and Practice
  3. £50 off the Level 4 Award in the Internal Quality Assurance of Assessment Processes and Practice
  4. 50% off the EPA Award

If you would like any further information about the qualifications that we offer here at Brooks & Kirk, please feel free to give us a call on 01205 805155 or email training@brooksandkirk.co.uk for more information.