How to prepare for quality assurance reviews

We’ll send information to your dedicated Programme Contact, who’ll be responsible for: 

• Agreeing a date for the review with the Quality Reviewer. We recommend a date is agreed early to ensure we can accommodate the date you require. Please note this is not required for remote moderation.
• Coordinating the review with all staff involved in the delivery of the qualification(s) to include any satellite or sub-contract centres.
• Ensuring at least one Assessor and one Internal Quality Assurer (IQA) is in place for each qualification.
• Ensuring staff attend mandatory training, where applicable.
• Collating information and evidence required to support the review.
• Reading and disseminating quality assurance reports. Reports can also be accessed via the Portal.
• Ensuring actions within quality reports are completed within specified timescales.
• Ensuring inactive learners are withdrawn in a timely manner. Failure to withdraw learners will result in actions within quality reports.
• Ensuring learner marks are submitted within specified timescales, where applicable. Our Portal User Guides explain how to do this.
• Providing feedback following quality assurance reviews through our continuous improvement surveys. The Programme Contact should liaise with relevant colleagues to collect feedback.
• Exploring our website and sharing information and updates with colleagues.
• Communicating with us ahead of the review.
• Sending information to support the review within specified timescales.

You can view your Programme Contact in the Portal. If this information has changed, let us know by completing the Change centre contact details details form. It’s important you keep us up to date with any changes, so we have the correct details.

You must assign an Internal Quality Assurer (IQA), who’ll be responsible for:

• Maintaining their CPD to ensure they have a qualification and/or recent occupational experience in the subject area they are quality assuring. Further details of occupational competence requirements can be found in the relevant qualification specification
• Maintaining their CPD to ensure that they have an internal quality assurance qualification. Where no internal quality assurance qualifications are held, centres must provide adequate staff development to ensure IQAs are working to national standards (e.g. attendance at our IQA training events).
• Sampling assessments to ensure they’re carried out to the same standard by all Assessor(s)
• Ensuring Assessor(s) are trained and hold appropriate qualifications
• Identifying training needs and providing training as appropriate
• Completing and authorising certificate claim forms via the Portal.

Where an IQA is also an Assessor of the qualification, their assessment decisions must be internally quality assured by a different IQA.

The IQA can be the same person as the Programme Contact.

You must assign an Assessor, who’ll be responsible for:

• Maintaining their CPD to ensure they have a qualification and/or recent occupational experience in the subject area they are assessing. Further details of occupational competence requirements can be found in the relevant qualification specification.
• Ensuring that they are competent to assess. Where no assessor qualifications are held, centres must provide adequate staff development to ensure Assessors are working to national standards (e.g. attendance at our assessor training events).
• Carrying out assessments in accordance with the qualification’s criteria as detailed in the qualification specification
• Ensuring learners’ evidence is valid and meets the standards of the qualification.
• Ensuring learners have achieved all learning outcomes related to the unit/qualification being assessed.
• Providing support and feedback to learners throughout the assessment process.

If you are delivering qualifications requiring learners to complete a formal external assessment component under exam conditions, you must assign an Invigilator, who’ll be responsible for:

• Supervising the external assessment process
• Completing the Invigilator’s Register, accessible via the Portal
• Ensuring the assessment is administered according to our Regulations for the Conduct of External Assessment.

You must assign an Examination Officer, who’ll be responsible for:

• Processing learner registrations
• Requesting certificates for successful learners where the IQA has confirmed learners have fully completed the qualification
• Distributing certificates to learners
• Coordinating the external assessment process for qualifications, where applicable and:
  • liaising with the Programme Contact to ensure external assessment papers are requested in advance of the proposed assessment date
  • Ensuring a suitable location is available for the external assessment to take place
  • Ensuring appropriate number of trained Invigilators are available and familiar with our Regulations for the Conduct of External Assessment.