Assessor Coach

Key Information

  • Level - 4
  • Typical duration – 18 months
  • Delivery model – Workshops and 1:1 in the workplace
  • Delivery Location – Workplace and Frontier house
  • Start date – September onwards

Programme Summary

The Assessor Coach role has emerged within the Education and Training Sector over the last 30 years, originally as a result of the implementation of vocational or competence-based qualifications and formalised work-based education and training. The Assessor/Coach is a dual professional, using their up-to-date professional knowledge and skills to support vocational and professional development across the formal education and training landscape as well as in any employer setting. They may, for example, coach and assess apprentices, trainees or new recruits in the workplace, commensurate with their own level of experience and qualifications, as required by their employer or their sector. They coach and assess vocational learners, usually on a one-to-one basis, in a range of learning environments. Coaching skills involve complex communication techniques to actively listen, provide feedback and to engage learners in planning their individualised learning programme. These skills are also integral to assessing learners’ competence in-relation to work-related/industry standards and life skills.

Assessor/coaches work co-operatively with other education and training professionals (such as teachers, human resource professionals and mentors/supervisors in the workplace) in supporting the learner’s development of vocational competence and the wider skills that relate to employability and professionalism.  

What will you learn?

  • Sources of and how to access up-to-date and valid IAG (Information, advice and guidance)
  • Relevant forms of assessment to identify individual needs
  • How to agree individual programmes that inspire and challenge learners to achieve current work-related knowledge and skills
  • Additional support for learners available through workplace and provider-based colleagues
  • Strategies for inspiring learners, increasing their resilience in overcoming barriers and obstacles, and in raising concerns
  • Maths and English underpinning vocational skills and how to access additional support
  • Effective practice in giving feedback to guide progress and achievement
  • Ways of supporting the learner’s well-being
  • Current and emerging technologies that could safely and effectively support learner autonomy and the Assessor-Coach role
  • Administrative procedures for recording, storing and sharing information that is legally compliant
  • The effective use of active listening, assertiveness and questioning skills to support retention, progress and achievement
  • The quality and safety requirements of assessment and procedures for reporting concerns
  • Internal and External quality procedures and the role of peer review
  • Organisational and legislative requirements for reporting concerns about quality and safeguarding
  • How to maintain occupational currency and ways to improve coaching and professional practice

How is it delivered and assessed?

Mandatory qualifications:

  • Level 3 Certificate in Assessing Vocational Achievement
  • Level 1 Safeguarding
  • Functional Skill Level 2 in English (unless previously achieved)
  • Functional Skill Level 2 in mathematics (unless previously achieved)
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  • Functional skills Level 2 in ICT (unless previously achieved)

The standard will mainly be delivered on a 1:1 basis with supporting workshops for technical knowledge e.g. safeguarding. The college uses an e-portfolio system to record and monitor the learning journey and to collect the evidence for the showcase, this could include peer observations, witness testimony, documentary evidence, case histories and reflective accounts.

End Point Assessment:

  • Showcase of exemplary practice
  • Observation of practice with two different learners
  • Professional discussion (based on the showcase)

Entry Requirements

  • A qualification, at an appropriate level, and relevant up-to-date experience in the candidate’s vocational/subject specialism.
  • English and maths – level 2
  • Apprentices must be in suitable employment have the opportunity to develop all required knowledge, skills and behaviours aligned to this apprenticeship standard.