Some might say that the role of an End-Point Assessor is the best role in apprenticeships. Training Qualifications UK’s End-Point Assessor Rachel Blood talks sense of achievement, flexibility with workloads and a company dedicated to supporting Apprentices. Oh and that she loves being an Assessor.
“I would say that I love, love, love this role. I love being part of an Apprentice’s journey and helping them to overcome their nerves and show their knowledge of their job role, hopefully to great success in the end’ says End-Point Assessor Rachel Blood.
‘I get a real sense of achievement when Apprentices have worked hard and achieved. For a lot of individuals who work in the care setting, in particular, this is often the first qualification they have ever achieved. I also think that the new Apprenticeship Standards have had a positive effect on the sector overall with Apprentices meeting the same standard.’
Apprenticeship Standards are designed with set Knowledge, Skills and Behaviour criteria in order to ensure a certain standard from each Apprentice. Assessors play a vital role in maintaining those standards are assessed consistently and fairly from one Apprentice to another.
Two-way Street
As a Training Qualifications UK End-Point Assessor, you are required to ensure Apprentices receive a fair and impartial assessment process. TQUK takes great pride in providing you with all the support and standardisation you need to develop as an End-Point Assessor and Internal Quality Assurer (IQA).
We do this to ensure consistency across our assessments but also because we recognise that becoming a freelance Assessor means that you can take the skills and knowledge earned when working with Training Qualifications UK and apply it across multiple contracts and jobs, not just with ourselves.
‘Of the many jobs I do each month this is definitely the most rewarding. I like the fact that I also get to IQA other Assessors work, this has helped me improve my practice and offer guidance to standardise the process across assessment staff,’ Rachel continues.
We always encourage and look for Assessors that take up work with other End-Point Assessment Organisations as it helps us to determine prior experience and we’ll work with you to analyse your workload, and maximise your time when you work with us.
That’s not to say that Training Qualifications UK has limits to the amount of work you can choose to undertake; we want to ensure quality of assessment and do not want to overstretch Assessors. As one of the leading End-Point Assessment Organisations across the country, Training Qualifications UK has a bank of assessors working across 35+ Apprenticeship Standards with hundreds of Apprentices on programme at all times.
Assessor Freedom
The freedom is with the Assessor to choose how many Apprentices they would like to assess; that flexibility is something which Rachel has found impressive and a major advantage to the role.
Of course, there are some challenging aspects to the role. Independence is key, and the ability to travel freely, but Training Qualifications UK is always on hand to assist Assessors with a dedicated End-Point Assessment team the main port of call. And because the power is in the Assessor’s hands when managing their portfolio of Apprentices, they can travel to wherever suits them.
So where’s the challenge in all this?
‘Helping Apprentices overcome the nerves before discussion can be challenging. In my experience I have also found that Apprentices at Level 2 in the care sector have limited knowledge in how to plan from an agenda and need greater support to guide them through and plan effectively.’ Rachel said.
‘It is brilliant to speak to Apprentices who have grown in confidence within their roles and hear of the huge range of things they have planned for their futures.’
‘But in terms of being an Assessor and managing my time, the TQUK team are really supportive and responsive. It’s a friendly organisation to work for and there is always someone willing to help if you need it.’
If you would like to get in touch with Training Qualifications UK and discuss becoming an End-Point Assessor, you can drop us an email at recruitment@tquk.org or alternatively, you can fill out our ‘Join as an Assessor’ form where you can let us know which of our Apprenticeship Standards you would be like to assess for us.
