Speaking today at a meeting of SCTP training providers, Dr Richard Benyon of OFSTED provided some very useful clarification around the format and requirements of the new inspection framework. Dr Benyon described how inspections will be carried out using a much softer approach. Rather than an inspector spending hours with a senior administrator asking for various records, or sitting in a class observing, the emphasis will be on speaking with students and using their responses to gauge the quality of the learning, the student’s clarity in terms of current progress and their next steps and other areas such as when they last received careers guidance.
As the student sits at the centre of the Standard, the training provider and the employee, interviewing them will provide a really clear picture of the quality of the whole student engagement. When gauging the quality of a provider’s internal processes, OFSTED will consider questions such as the frequency with which assessors receive training and the size of their workloads.
For users of VQManager there is good news – VQManager already tracks metrics such as assessor CPD and workloads, it’s able to prompt assessors when safeguarding training should be provided and refreshed (for example) and it will shortly be able to track and chart the learner, assessor and employer’s periodic assessment of learner progression.So that we can focus our development time on building functionality that will have the longest possible life expectancy, during the final 12 months of any browser’s life we do not guarantee that all new SkillWise development will be compatible with the outgoing browser.
VQManager will of course continue to be fully supported for all of the most common current browsers (including more recent versions of Internet Explorer), of which there are many.
If you have any functionality issues which are related to your use of IE8, we would be very happy to advise you of alternative browsers.