What Level Can I Assess Up To?

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Let’s play a quick game… What do you think one of our most frequently asked questions is? No cheating and looking at our FAQs section!

Did you guess it? What gave it away, the title of this blog? Well done if you got the correct answer. The question we are always asked is what level can you assess up to, following the completion of an assessor qualification. As you can imagine, there are several factors that this answer depends on: your experience, qualifications, and guidance set out by the awarding body. Not to mention your employer’s individual policies too.

You need to be Occupationally Competent

What we mean here is that you need to ‘know your stuff’. You should have vast experience working within the occupation you want to assess learners in. The short answer is that you can assess and level that you are deemed to be occupationally competent. We need to have a look into this in more detail though.

The most important thing to be aware of is that you need to meet the requirements set out in the awarding organisation’s qualification documents. The awarding body matters when you choose a training provider, and it is important that you take the time to read through the full specifications before choosing your qualification. It will include everything you need to know, including the ‘Requirements for Assessors’. This is specific information regarding what level you can assess up to.

Not Qualified but Occupationally Competent

The hard thing to determine is what classes as ‘occupationally competent’. If you take a look at some of the specifications, you will notice they don’t require you to hold the respective qualification in order to assess it. So essentially, you could assess learners taking the Level 3 NVQ Diploma in Hairdressing without having the qualification yourself. Of course you would need to show evidence of occupational competence in this particular field though.

That is why the question ‘what level can I assess up to?’ is such a hard one to answer. At the end of the day, it really comes down to the individual training provider or college. They are the only ones who can decide the requirements for their own assessors.

Experienced but Not Qualified

There is also the grey area where people who have been working in a specific industry for years, but aren’t qualified. In general, we would always advise that you need to be qualified up to the level that you are wanting to assess in. There will be many more job prospects as a qualified assessor so it really is worth becoming qualified in your field.

We hope this has helped to answer the question for you, but we do agree that it is a confusing area. Everyone’s situation is different so there is no right or wrong answer. Feel free to give our expert team a call on 01205 805 155 if you are still unsure.