Internal Quality Assurance Policy
Our Internal Quality Assurance process will be applied in the day to day operations of the centre by all personnel to ensure that learners receive accurate, valid grades with high quality, developmental feedback, and that assessors and tutors have regular opportunities to engage in peer assessment and good practice sharing.
All Internal Quality Assurers (IQAs) are expected to be appropriately as defined by the Awarding Body. The IQA must also be occupationally competent to meet the requirements of the assessment strategy for the relevant qualification. All IQA’s will be approved by the Awarding Body to enable them to work on the Approved Training Centre (ATC).
The course IQA will ensure all the requirements for the Awarding Body and learners are met.
Internal Quality Assurance Aim
This document outlines the process for ensuring that all programmes are quality assured and additional moderation is carried out by the Lead IQA, as required. It also ensures that good practice is shared between assessors and developmental areas are highlighted at the earliest opportunity. The process can be applied to both practical and written assessments. The model aims to:
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Standardise grading judgments.
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Maximise the developmental feedback to the learner.
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Provide developmental feedback to assessors and tutors.
The size of the sample to be quality assured will vary, dependent on the number of times the programme has been delivered and the quantity of learners to be assessed. Consideration will also be given to the individual assessor when the sampling percentage is determined by the Awarding Body.
Internal Quality Assurance Process
The Lead IQA will produce a matrix with details of all programmes, assessments and allocated Assessors and IQA’s. The Lead IQA will be required to allocate quality assurance responsibilities to appropriately competent IQA’s. Each IQA will need to plan their sampling using a sampling plan which covers:
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Assessors
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Learners
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Units
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Assessment methods
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Types of evidence
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Assessment records
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Assessment locations
Standardisation and Continuous Professional Development (CPD)
Regular standardisation meetings will be held, chaired by the Lead IQA. The meetings will be an opportunity to share good practice and highlight areas for development; however, neither IQAs nor Assessors should wait until the monthly meeting if they have identified a significant area for development. Such issues should be directed to the Lead IQA as a matter of urgency. The Lead IQA must document all of these instances and store the evidence is the standardisation folder.
CPD is the responsibility of the individual Assessor; each Assessor must, in conjunction with the relevant assessment strategy make sure that they have completed all necessary CPD activities. These must be recorded these in an auditable CPD record and records held within the administration department. The Lead IQA has the opportunity to remove assessors from assessment where CPD activities have been or are inadequate.
Additional Guidance
For External Quality Assurance purposes, all IQA documents and records must be retained for three years.
Where staffing constraints dictate that a member of staff is required to assess and quality assure on the same programme, they must only quality assure assessments which have been conducted by another Assessor.
The Lead IQA will be responsible for maintaining a database of all IQA and Assessor activity.