The Purpose of End-Point Assessment – What is it?
K-S-Bs stands for Knowledge, Skills and Behaviours. Every Apprenticeship Standard lists the K-S-Bs that an Apprentice must demonstrate. Once the Apprentice has gained the KSBs, they can be deemed occupationally competent. That is where the End-Point Assessment comes in.
End-Point Assessments test whether an Apprentice has learned all of the necessary K-S-Bs during their Apprenticeship. Obviously, if they have, then they’re competent. Happy days! However if the Independent End-Point Assessor believes that the apprentice hasn’t hit all of the K-S-Bs, then they fail their EPA because they’re not fully competent yet.
That being said, the apprentice does always get the opportunity to retake the EPA. Because let’s be honest, we all have our off days.
It’s not necessarily just a case of pass or fail either. This is where the secondary purpose of an End-Point Assessment comes in. As an IEPA, you would be required to grade the apprentice based on their performance in the EPA. The grading scale can change from one apprenticeship to another. However, in most cases, the three options are: fail, pass or distinction. You will find some apprenticeships are just pass or fail. Whilst others include ‘merit‘ as a possible type of pass as well.
So, not only does the EPA confirm that an apprentice is competent, but it also confirms the extent of their competence.
Important to remember…
The Apprentice must do their EPA and must achieve a minimum of a ‘pass’ on every assessment within the EPA. Until they do, they can’t get their Apprenticeship certificate and they won’t technically be seen as ‘occupationally competent’.
And that is the purpose of End-Point Assessment.
If you want to become an End-Point Assessor, then we would recommend enrolling on to our End-Point Assessor course bundle. Alternatively, if you already hold a valid assessor qualification, then we would recommend our online EPA CPD course. If you have any questions, please get in touch on 01205 805155 or email us at training@brooksandkirk.ac.uk.
Other EPA blogs in this series:
- What does an End-Point Assessment involve?
- Where can I find information on specific End-Point Assessments?
- How do I find an End-Point Assessment plan?
- Who are End-Point Assessment Organisations?
- How can I find End-Point Assessment Organisations?
Steve is a Chartered Manager and a Fellow of the Chartered Management Institute.
He provides Educational Consultancy to the 19+ sector as well as being an Assessor, IQA, EPA and Digital Marketing Professional. When not doing any of these he finds time, every now and then, to write blogs and articles.