Preparations needed for Level 4 Award in the Internal Quality Assurance of Assessment Processes and Practice

Winging the Level 4 Award in the Internal Quality Assurance of Assessment Processes and Practice is not an option

IQA is not something you should just wing. You need a plan. I’ve been doing it for countless years, and I still plan each course when I’m quality assuring the Level 4 Award in the Internal Quality Assurance of Assessment Processes and Practice.

Annual monitoring plan for the Level 4 Award in the Internal Quality Assurance of Assessment Processes and Practice

You should have your annual plan which should be monitored and adapted where needed and then you should have a plan for each cohort your quality assure. As I’ve been quality assuring the Level 4 Award in the Internal Quality Assurance of Assessment Processes and Practice for a long time, over time I have created the necessary resources to help me with my planning, but I still need to prepare for any IQA visit.

You should have all of the qualifications from your staff including CVs, CPD and certificates so you know they are competent in your role. It is likely you’ll be involved in gathering this information before your assessors start work and it’s a responsibility of the IQA to ensure these records are maintained throughout employment. Depending on contracts and staff availability, you might want to spread out the workload evenly. You will need the awarding bodies registration numbers for each learner so you can plan which learners and which assessors will be sampled so you cover a diverse range.

We’re going to split your preparations for the Level 4 Award in the Internal Quality Assurance of Assessment Processes and Practice into four categories. These are information collection, communication, administrative arrangements and resources.

Information collection for the Level 4 Award in the Internal Quality Assurance of Assessment Processes and Practice

Information collection is about gathering the required information that you need. This is likely going to be learner assessment records and any other associated documentation that you need for your role. I might print off the qualification specification for the Level 4 Award in the Internal Quality Assurance of Assessment Processes and Practice and any associated policies and procedures. I may collect my assessor training records including any action plans that have been sent.

Communication – As an IQA for the Level 4 Award in the Internal Quality Assurance of Assessment Processes and Practice I need to communicate with the assessor, learners and potentially the awarding body. When you communicate is likely going to be dependent upon whether you are doing interim or summative sampling. So, for example if its interim, I am likely going to find out where the assessment is taking place so I can be there to observe or if its summative sampling, I may ask to find out where are these records. Furthermore, I could also start to ask questions to the IQA or the learners as part of my sampling so I may need to arrange times and locations to do this or contact details to phone or email them.

Administration arrangements are ensuring that the assessment records are completed fully. We need our administration records and assessment records to be fully compliant with the awarding bodies requirements. My experience working within organisations and working as an EQA is that administration is likely to be a training providers weakness.

Responsibilities within the Level 4 Award in the Internal Quality Assurance of Assessment Processes and Practice

You need to identify whose responsibilities are for ensuring admin is completed. In our organisation, we train our assessors to complete all paperwork fully, our IQAs will complete their bit and then its left to our administration team to verify its all completed accurately. Lastly, we’ll mention resources. This will be anything that supports you carrying out your IQA role. For the Level 4 Award in the Internal Quality Assurance of Assessment Processes and Practice I will have the assessment records, quality assurance manuals and strategies, sampling plan, sampling report sheets, any checklists I may need such as interview questions for learners and assessors and observation sheets and also basics like pen and paper, my laptop, online systems.