NCFE was born in 1848 with the belief that no learner should be left behind. They have spent the past 170 years shaping our resources and offer to ensure that everyone can access high quality education to gain the skills they need for a career they’ll love.

As part of their commitment to shaping smarter learning, NCFE offers skills assessment and diagnostic tools which can transform how education providers approach Functional Skills and GCSEs, and are designed to develop employability skills for learners.

These skills assessment tools have been created with all kinds of learners in mind. For instance, Skills Review helps to address the needs of apprenticeship Initial Assessments (IAs).

The Importance of Initial Assessments

Conducted before the programme begins, IAs aim to help training providers and colleges better understand the learner’s abilities in line with the proposed apprenticeship, as well as assess their starting point to better set them up for success. By completing an IA, educators are forming the essential building blocks of the learner’s individual programme – the foundations for success.

For training providers and colleges, IAs are vital as they formally recognise prior learning (RPL) and ensure that the programme content, duration, and price is appropriate for the learner. If the RPL isn’t recognised, issues around funding, course content and more can arise, creating a costly problem for the provider, as well as quality concerns in relation to the delivery model of the apprenticeship. While it’s imperative that educators discover each learner’s RPL to stay on track with the funding rules, the equally crucial benefit of RPL on the learners themselves cannot be emphasised enough.

Skills Review for Initial Assessments

The Skills Review platform can help learners and educators with IAs, document RPL, document and evidence adjustments to duration, content and funding, and also help to keep employers up to date on their apprentice’s progress throughout their training.

Skills Review offers a detailed self-assessment skills gap analysis of the knowledge, skills and behaviours within the apprenticeship standard, and is employer and provider validated to accurately capture an individual’s true starting point.

The NCFE IA process goes beyond English and maths competency by assessing against the skills, knowledge and behaviours of the standard. Going further than the IA, Skills Review also helps training providers and colleges to keep the employer up to date on the apprentice’s progress throughout their apprenticeship by continuously monitoring gateway readiness.

At NCFE, the learner is at the heart of what they do, which is why our Skills Review solution works to ensure apprentices are fully supported and set up for every success.

For more information, visit www.ncfe.org.uk/skills-assessment/skills-review or email skillsassessments@ncfe.org.uk.