QIA Excellence Gateway

Assessment is the process by which learners demonstrate their understanding of an area, usually to prescribed national standards. It may include demonstrating competence in practical areas as well as theoretical knowledge.

How do your assessment practices compare with that of the most effective provision seen on inspection?

The following strengths and areas for improvement have been taken from recent inspection reports across the Ofsted Learning and Skills remit.

Common inspection strengths

• Good assessment planning
• Good assessment practice
• Good use of work-based assessment
• Particularly effective learner-centred assessment
• Particularly flexible arrangements to support assessment and learning

Common inspection areas for improvement

• Some unsatisfactory assessment practices
• Some ineffective assessment
• Insufficient assessment feedback

If you were given a similar area for improvement bullet at the end of your last inspection, self assessed this area as an area for improvement, or want to work to avoid such areas for improvement, then consider what inspectors judge to be key.

Particularly effective practice identified in inspections includes:

• Introducing assessment as early as possible in the training programme, helping develop confidence in learners so that they develop a ‘can-do’ attitude and want to be assessed as soon as is practically possible.
• Explaining the principles of assessment at induction so that learners are familiar with the assessment process, types of evidence and the appeals procedure. A good understanding by learners helps to promote assessment.
• Assessment becoming learner-led. Learners develop the confidence to know when they are ready for assessment and what they need to do in order to be successful (particularly with level 3 work).
• Encouraging learners to collect evidence for their portfolio at an early stage. Even if it does not yet demonstrate competence, it can be replaced with alternative evidence later and can help demonstrate progress.
• Developing the assessment plan over the duration of the programme, incorporating details of the activity being assessed, for example the units, elements, performance criteria and range, along with likely sources of evidence and the method of assessment. It is important however to be aware that opportunities for assessment may arise unexpectedly so some flexibility should be built into the plan.
• Varying the methods of assessment used, for example using direct observation, professional discussion, authorised witness testimony and evidence of products and documents from the workplace.
• Making use of technology where it helps to facilitate assessment, not for the sake of using it. For example, in work-based learning in rural areas some providers have use live web cam links in order to observe assessment and to question learners. Others have made digital recordings of discussions or videoed practical work being completed.
• Assessors setting up enough assessment opportunities to ensure that the learner is practised and more likely to prove competence during an assessment. The best assessors prepare learners to succeed.
• Grouping assessments to close down units so that learners can see clear progress as units are completed. Working on too many units at once can make progress unfocused and slow.
• Ensuring that learners have their own assessment tracker and understand where they are in terms of their assessment plan.
• Assessors clearly explaining where learners can make improvements.
• Ensuring assessors give written as well as verbal feedback to learners. Learners know what they have achieved and where they still have more to learn in order to achieve the required standard. No matter how good the verbal feedback given is, some learners will forget what was said.
• Setting up systems to ensure that the assessment criteria of the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority (QCA) are met in every programme area.
• Having lead internal verifiers who ensure they keep themselves and others updated.
• Ensuring that there is adequate succession planning in place should key staff (such as internal verifiers) leave or become unavailable.
• Keeping records of assessment decisions so that internal and external verifiers can check the decisions on a sample basis (this may need to be done in different ways as types of evidence collection changes, for example, digital recordings of professional discussions).
• Ensuring that progress reviews help set clear, broken down targets. This helps facilitate learners moving towards becoming ready for assessment.
• Assessors stopping assessment where a learner is clearly not going to demonstrate competence. This can turn a potentially negative experience into a positive one by turning assessment into coaching in preparation for the next attempt at proving competence.
• Promoting the acquisition of assessor qualifications by employer staff to make assessment more readily available in the workplace.
• Making sure that employers are aware of assessment practice and national standards. Some well-known employers have a tendency to assess to their own standards (usually higher) rather than national standards.
• Making sure that workplace supervisors who provide witness testimonies understand the level of competence required to meet the relevant occupational standard.
• Ensuring that assessment is not ‘back-loaded’ so that it is carried out in a block towards the end of training, rather than when the learner is ready.
• Providing online assessment where it is available and where it helps learners. This has been particularly successful in key skills where learners receive feedback on where they have gone wrong and quick assessment decisions.
• Assessment being quality assured and improved through internal and external verification. Where feedback to improve assessment is given this should be easily traced to completion (‘closing the loop’). The best systems promote assessment and track learner progress. Identifying and spreading good practice.

What could you do next to improve your provision?

• Read inspection reports to identify what the best providers are doing in your particular type of provision or area of learning (also check other types of provision as good practice is usually transferable between inspection contexts - adult and community learning, college, DWP, work-based, etc). As well as looking at providers with ‘outstanding’ aspects or monitoring visit reports with judgements of ‘significant progress’, look at providers who are similar to yourself in terms of remit, size and what they offer – Ofsted inspection reports
• Get a clearer and richer understanding of what you need to do to improve – Learner-centred self-assessment
• Use downloadable quality-improvement resources to develop your staff team and to focus on actions that will help to improve your provision – Actions for quality improvement
• Adopt or adapt the best bits of other providers’ work that inspection has identified as being particularly effective – Ofsted good practice database examples
• Measure just how effective your initial-assessment system is and if your quality-improvement initiatives are working – Data projects
• Develop a blueprint for initial assessment of your learners – Initial assessment and support
• Check whether your self-assessment report is fit for purpose – Self-assessment surgery projects
• Use the guidance developed by Ofsted to know what to expect in order to prepare for inspection, look at the Ofsted inspection handbook for your remit or the inspection toolkit – use the search box if necessary - inspection handbooks and toolkit
• Use the Excellence Gateway as a first ‘port of call’ when researching areas that you would like to improve. As well as the Ofsted-related area, simple word searches will bring you a variety of information about what others in the learning and skills sector are doing to improve their provision. This is particularly useful for any newer areas that you may wish to research.