Standard bearer
Experienced childcarers will have a choice in how they want to work as an NVQ assessor in a growing job market. Meg Jones reports
The Government is keen for more people to take NVQs in all subjects, so consequently there's a growing demand for NVQ assessors. How do you go about becoming one in the early years field?
Getting started
To become an NVQ assessor, candidates will have to be able to demonstrate 'occupational competency'. Each NVQ assessment centre will judge this slightly differently, but to assess candidates taking the NVQ in Early Years Care and Education, you should have at least a basic childcare qualification such as an NVQ level 3 or NNEB, as well as several years experience. Some Nursery World readers may also be qualified to assess the NVQ in Playwork and NVQ in Caring for Children and Young People (contact the organisations below).
Colleges and training agencies offer two awards for assessing:
- Training and Development Lead Body (TDLB) Assessor Award D32 (an assessment of candidate performance)
- TDLB Assessor Award D33 (an assessment of candidate using differing sources of evidence).
Training may take several evenings or two or three days. Essentially you will have to make yourself familiar with NVQ vocabulary, learn how to put together a portfolio of evidence regarding a candidate's performance and have your assessing skills observed by an accredited assessor.
Costs vary as there is a range of subsidy levels provided by Training Enterprise Councils (TECs) and colleges. Full fees are about 340. It is thought that Early Years Development and Childcare Partnerships may take over the role of the TECs which are to be reorganised as part of a new Learning and Skills Council.
Average week
Once you have qualified as an assessor, you can either be work-based or peripatetic. The latter means going out to visit candidates in their usual setting, and working on a freelance basis. Look out for jobs which have assessing as part of their role or apply to NVQ assessment centres to work on a peripatetic basis.
Juli Jones, 32, has managed Nursery Network in Burton-on-Trent, Staffordshire, for two years. Being a work-based assessor is part of the job because the nursery is an assessment centre for CACHE. Tracy Jose, on the other hand, works as a peripatetic assessor for two assessment centres within a 20-mile radius of her home in Uttoxeter in Staffordshire.
There are 15 NVQ level 2 and 3 candidates under the modern apprentice scheme at Juli's nursery and she spends half her week giving tutorials, looking at portfolios of the candidates work, setting up question sheets and observing them with children. 'As we work together all the time I know each candidate individually,' she says. 'I know what stage they're at and when they are not progressing.'
Juli, who worked five years as a nanny and five working her way up to acting manager at a London nursery before moving to Nursery Networks as deputy manager, uses video, audio tape and oral questions as well as written answers from the candidates to gather evidence of their competence and knowledge. 'I love it when the candidates finish the course. It's a real achievement,' says Juli. 'The down side is all the form-filling.'
One advantage for Tracy, who has four children, is that she can fit her weekly assessing around her family demands. She qualified as an assessor in 1995 after 15 years in childcare, including ten years as a nursery officer in a family centre. At the time she was lecturing at an FE college that was desperate to recruit NVQ assessors.
She says, 'My average week involves six hours assessing for City and Guilds - that is, two candidates in different locations, usually close to home. I am contracted by the Assessment Centre at the College for three hours a month per candidate, of whom I have several.'
Tracy also assesses for CACHE at another college and teaches material to underpin the NVQ courses to a small group of students.
Pay and conditions
As assessing is part of Juli's job she does not get any extra pay. Tracy is paid by the hour for her City and Guilds work - she gets 9.98 plus travelling expenses. For her CACHE work she is paid per assessment - three amounts of up to 43.37 per assessment, depending on the level, and a mentor fee of up to 75. For teaching the small group, Tracy gets paid FE casual rates. The downside of the job for Tracy is that 'it's all short-term contracts with no guarantees of work.'
Qualities needed
Tracy sums up the qualities needed in her work. 'As well as having lots of childcare experience, you need to be able to weigh up situations quickly. You must enjoy working with students, be open-minded, outgoing, flexible, tolerant, patient and a good listener.'
Tracy would like to take a further short course to become an Internal Verifier (D34), which involves assessing assessors, and then to take the next step up to be an External Verifier (D35), for which she would be employed by an awarding body.
Juli hopes that other nurseries will register with the assessment centre she works at so that she can go out to assess in other places. 'However, I wouldn't want to be an assessor full-time,' she says, 'because I want to work with children.'
