Hi, My name is Tony Shield, I manage ARC's Training Consortium and I thought it was about time I got into blogging! It seems like everyone with something to say these days, says it through a blog! So here goes.....I've been with ARC for almost 12 months now, (the aniversary is on the 7th April), and I have seen many changes in the consortium during that time. Not only has the whole staff team changed, (apart from Jenny Grey, who is still working for us, homebased, and is administrating for the HPD), but the office relocated to Chesterfield, from Evesham.
The move brought about its own issues, things getting misplaced, delays in processing paperwork as it was hidden under a ton of boxes, etc.....but what caused the most frustration, was one or two people seeing an opportunity to 'hide' the fact they had not done any work for 18 months or more, by blaming ARC. They used the move from Evesham, and change of people/assessor, as reasons for not contacting either the office, or their assessor. Granted, of all the cases investigated by me, two thirds of them were genuine. That leaves a third that were 'trying it on'.
What happened to honesty and pride, where did integrity disappear to?
When I first got involved with NVQs in the early 90's, candidates were being told, "NVQs are candidate led, you need to ask the assessor to come and see you, not sit around and wait"! Here we are all these years later, and still many candidates have to be given the same message!!!
What have centres got to do to get candidates to engage?
Some candidates and a few Training Managers, (which is even worse) seem to think that an assessor’s job is to gather the evidence, map or cross reference it to the standards, and more or less complete the award for them! Admittedly, there have been one or two assessors in the past who have nurtured that process, and made a cross for others to bear!
Even so, it is wrong and shouldn’t be happening!
A big debate is breaking out over the LDQ, it was developed and mapped to the HSC NVQ II, with the purpose of providing knowledge requirements. In practice it isn’t doing that. Many assessors are quite rightly, re-assessing the LDQ workbook against the standards. LDQ centres are saying they shouldn’t have to.
Who is right?
Janet Fairly of TASS said “this is worrying, we need to feedback examples from assessors to the awarding body, the LDQ provides a level of answer that maps directly across to the nvq standards, it should not require re-assessment, maybe we need to include the mapping in the packs, for assessors to have to hand?”
I think the fact that LDQ markers do not require an A1 or D32 Assessor Award doesn’t help.
What do you think?
Views expressed in this blog are personal to me and do not represent the views of ARC or it's employees.
About Me
- Tony Shield
- United Kingdom
- I began working life as a plumber, joined the army as a Royal Engineer, saw service in Northern Ireland and Cyprus, before leaving to start my own business as a plumber and heating engineer. I moved to North Wales, where I eventually swapped my job for my hobby, when I landed a role at Pengwern Hall, Mencap's College in North Wales. I developed a Rare Breeds Farm Park which we opened to the public, a form of 'reverse integration'. After 7 years, I moved on to become a Training and Development Co-ordinator for Anheddau Cyf, in Bangor North Wales, where I developed their 'in house' training, nvqs, health and safety and quality assurance systems. After several years, I moved to Cartref Ni, to do much the same thing, I was with them for over 5 years before I left for pastures new. After a short spell out of the Care Sector, I was enticed back, by an offer of a short term contract to manage the move of ARC's consortium, from Evesham to Chesterfield, and to head up the newly recruited team. After 5 months in the job, I was offered the role of Training Services Manager as a permanent position.
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I was with an City & guilds EV who was looking directly at the LDQs in another organisation, where I am the IV, a few weeks ago. She very clearly said, that the LDQs can be used as APL, but it must be assessed by the porfolio assessor to ensure that it does meet the required HSC knowledge etc being claimed. She was very clear that there was no direct transfer, especially inview of the fact that most LDQs are not marked by 'qualified assessors'. If the LDQ assessors did have the A1/D32/33, this would certainly help!
ReplyDeleteThis is the sort of thing that confuses people! I think that the Awarding Body needs to go back to the drawing board and re-think the 'marking/assessment' process for the LDQ.
ReplyDeleteUntil it is 'fit for purpose' this confusion will continue, which is not good for any of the parties concerned. So come on City & Guilds, call a meeting with the centres, get more feedback and get it sorted!
I heard, anecdotally, that it is a City & Guilds decision that assessors have to make a judgement on the LDQ evidence against the NVQ standards and I can see the logic of their argument ie that the LDQ doesn't have to be marked by an NVQ assessor so evidence is not judged in the same way as a qualified , competent NVQ assessor. After all, the NVQ assessor is signing the unit declaring that the evidence meets the rules of VAS and assessment decisions have to be "safe", which is a big responsibility.
ReplyDeleteApparantly, another awarding body allows direct transfer of LDQ to NVQ, though I haven't yet been able to substantiate this (can anyone else?). I think this should be the way forward as C & G did with the previous set of standards. We should be encouraging the use of APEL and giving recognition for what a candidate has already achieved, so we shouldn't make the process overly and unnecessarily tedious.
It seems so 'over the top' to me that an award (LDQ) that has been carefully mapped showing clearly how it links to the Knowledge Evidence of the NVQ, which has been marked, standardised and certificated by an approved centre has to be re assessed to be used as part of someone's NVQ.
ReplyDeletePerhaps ensuring Assessors, verifiers and EVs have copied of the mapping and may help. But to re assess undermines all of the work the candidate has done and more over undermines the quality of the LDQ award and the centres that are marking it.