Anonymous

Skills

Key Responsibilities and Accountabilities
·Manage the IQA process and motivate and support the team of trainer coaches in my sector to deliver high-quality apprenticeships and training. Supporting the Coaching Professional and L&D Apprenticeships level 3 and 5 over a 14/15 month program ensuring the correct resources are in place, learner engagement is aligned to resources, and quality learning is provided for all learners.
My Prior experience includes:
Having achieved my EPA qualification, I understood the standards and what was expected for portfolio building for Business Administration/Customer Service and Management and leadership for each criteria.
I began Babington over 4 years ago when I was still working with Framework qualifications and standards were new. I worked with skills coaches collaboratively and a specialist who, under my guidance, created resources, session plans and schemes of work, with my support to ensure planning of the program was timely and fully comprehensive teaching and learning resources met standards.
At this time we used OneFile and planned session over the duration of the coaching qualification, breaking down teaching and learning over a 14-month period. To help support coaches, I ensured standardisation meetings were put in place for consistency. I found out what skills coaches knew about the new standard, creating a matrix of skills and qualifications, ensuring training sessions were accessible for all on for support.
Observations were completed and skills coaches were Rag rated, so I could identify guidance and future coaching sessions required. We used emails and teams to communicate. I attended one-to-ones with Quality reports shared with motivational feedback given through sampling and observations.
Resources included a handbook to support learners in the knowledge exam. Setting up interactive bootcamps to support learners coming up for EPA. Carrying out mock recorded discussions was a massive help, as these could be sampled and feedback given. Folder system designed to capture learner evidence, building a portfolio of evidence.
Standardisation meetings aligned with coaches on the program at varying points to ensure support was in place. Open forums were used for questions using Teams. Drop-in sessions to support Skills coaches throughout the week also supported the learners.
I have been involved with several large project management tasks, using online platforms. I have been in charge of managing how feedback was implemented to standardise online portfolios so we all are working the same way. This was implemented across the team with resources created and standardisation meetings completed to help support assessors in training and learning. I have also been responsible for creating, implementing and distributing a good practice guide to help coaches understand the implications of not completing feedback in a timely manner on learner portfolio’s and how setting SMART targets to motivate learners will help gain progression and timely completions. This helps with clear transparency and successful completion of an apprenticeship. Having been involved with the SAR and QIP I have been able to identify risks and put elements of good practice in place to avoid risks to the business and ensure the relevant support is in place
Referencing sheets were completed to help understand the criteria for business administration, as the areas required to be covered in the standard were massive. Feedback was ongoing to ensure continuous improvement was implemented.
Final checks were completed before being uploaded to the EPA, reducing the check once the coaches' portfolios were accurate, six months in and once learners completed Gateway, we had a 93% success rate.
Uploading portfolios and working with EPAO’s, I support the quality team carrying out thematic reviews and deep dives across the business to identify trends in areas of strength and areas for development. Schedule and Plan approaches every year, sharing with other QSS’s the calendar cycle to be scheduled. Using the Power BI reporting tool, I would look a risk areas’ such as achievements, Withdrawal’s OOFs, CSAT’ scores and learner progress to ensure customer service was maintained.
I worked alongside the Head of Quality and Heads of Delivery to develop and review the curriculum, attend standardisation meetings, attend CIP meetings, review sampling plans and add development to QSS’s action plans. I regularly review the currency of all learning programmes and plan improvements, with coach involvement, discussions with other QSS or EPAo’s accessing the build and blended learning resources we use.
Planning and completing CIP meetings with the team on all business areas every 3 months allows us to analyse and record findings in the SAR and QIP across qualifications.
Scheduling OTLA’s assists me in recording and monitoring trends on a monthly basis. Further improvements were shared within standardisation meetings, allowing me to highlight the data, analysis findings for continuous improvement.
I also need to keep up to date for compliance; changes in the law and standards need to be reviewed yearly to ensure updates and trends are completed.
Learning solution tools include the use of Obrisim which uses artificial intelligence. We have also used Cognasist which allows use to identify hidden learning needs and personal support and ensure learner attainment to improve learning.
To try and make things more attractive to employers and learners, we potentially offering embedded qualifications to enhance learning. Additional avenues and funding streams need to be considered and changed. Anything we do covers needs to ensure learner needs are captured along with learner intention.

Many thanks

Dawn Reay

About

As a Quality Assurer my role is to maintain, support, and lead on the provision of quality assurance within my field of expertise for compliance. I quality assure, motivate, and develop the coaches in my sector to deliver a high-quality learning and development learner experience. As an IQA, my role is to promote best practice and ensure that delivery across standards and courses is in line with the standardisation agreed. Through the provision of IAG to Coaches, I strive to seek the opportunities to improve the learner journey by continuously developing and evolving delivery models. This ensures consistent and high-quality delivery across the trainer coaches.
I work with the Lead Managers and the Head of Quality to ensure the wider quality strategy is implemented, delivering the agreed business targets, developing, and implementing the learner journey and curriculum resources. Ultimately, my role is to champion the learners and to support the organisation to deliver a high quality of service to each individual studying on the program. Booking learners on programs and workshops was also included, along with monitoring attendees for compliance from the beginning to the end of a learner journey.