Assessor Guidance

This document sets out information for assessors on supporting students through their programme of study.

Initial Enrolment

Initial course information is accessed via the Fit4Training website. Potential learners can also utilise our website contact form, Facebook or Instagram to get in touch with course information prior to enrolling. Our policies and procedures are available on the website for public viewing by potential learners prior to enrolment.

Completion of registration form.

Upon completion of the registration form, learners receive a general welcome email with details on how to get in touch as well as a copy of their completed form and a link to our policies and procedures including the booking terms, RPL and Exemption Policy. They will receive a GoCardless payment link to either make payment in full or set up their payment plan.

Learning Resources

Any relevant learning resources (manuals and/or elearning modules/Y-Marks) are ordered and sent to learners within 5 working days.

Elearning modules and Y-Mark assessment workbooks are access via YMCA's moodle platform or the Suada app. If you need access to any elearning module to check content or access to Y-Marks to view students grades, please let Michelle know what you need access to.

Induction/Welcome

Learners also receive a specific welcome email introducing them to you. You will be copied in on this email so you are aware a new learner has enrolled.

Martin will also add them to your student tracker spreadsheet (located in your Dropbox folder). Within this email, learners also receive a link to their course resources page where they can find the following:

Course Induction
Link to elearning/Y-Marks
Tutor/assessors contact details
Learner Assessment Record
Specific assessment guidance
Other recommended reading/texts
Any additional resources (reputable websites, presentations, mock exams)
How to book external exams (face-to-face or eProctoring)
Video assessment guidance and upload guidance
Policies and procedures

Course Resources Pages

These links are only to be provided to students who have enrolled and paid. You shouldn't need to send these links to students as they will be sent them upon enrolment. These are here for your information or if students lose their initial induction email.

Gym Instructing - https://www.fit4training.com/gym-resources

Personal Training - https://www.fit4training.com/pt-resources

Older Adult - https://www.fit4training.com/supporting-older-adult-resources

Disabled Clients - https://www.fit4training.com/supporting-disability-resources

Pilates - https://www.fit4training.com/pilates-resources

Outdoor Fitness - https://www.fit4training.com/outdoor-fitness-resources

Initial Contact

If no contact is made by the learners themselves after enrolment, tutor/assessors are to contact learners within 2 weeks of welcome email to answer any initial queries they have regarding their course.

Courses are mostly self-paced and students have up to 12 months to complete (see Fees and Course Timeframes policy.

The first contact is to be used to establish learner’s goals, motivation and a general insight into their ideal course timeframe in order to populate an assessment plan. This contact is to be recorded on the student tracker – recording a date, plus brief topic is all that is required.

If more detailed notes on contact are required, please create a folder named the learners name in your Dropbox folder and save your notes in this folder.

We must be able to evidence that we have had regular contact with students. For example, if a student was to contact us with a few weeks left to complete their course and claim they have had no support, we should be able to see on your student trackers that regular contact has at least been attempted.

Ongoing Study

Learners to use specific assessment guidance documents on course recourses page as well as their learning resources, to follow a step-by-step process in completing their assessments, utilising the support from yourself as much as required throughout.

If no contact is made for a month, tutors/assessors will get in touch and record this contact on their student tracker – again simply a date and brief topic is all that is required.

Learners are to submit all coursework for marking/feedback using our coursework submission form (not via email), so submission can be logged. Work is to be marked within 15 working days and feedback provided to the learner directly in written form via email. Please save feedback in learners folder in your Dropbox folder.

For any assessments passed, please record the date this assessment was passed on your student tracker. We must be able to quickly see what stage a learner is at through their course.

To check on exam results, please go to XAMS - https://ymca.xams.co.uk/user/login/.

Email awards.support@ymca.co.uk in order to gain assessor access.

After 9 months, contact to be increased to once weekly (where required) to ensure learners are on-track to complete. For any concerns over timeframe, learners are directed to our Fees and Course Timeframes policy

Course Completion

Once the learner has passed all assessments, please ensure that the Summary of Achievement has been FULLY completed including exam results and Y-Mark grades.

Please then save the learner folder in your folder "Ready for IQA".

Please ensure you send your learner a final "well done" email so they are aware there is nothing more to do. Explain that their work is subject to our IQA process and approval by YMCA Awards.

We state to all learners that the process of IQA, EQA and certificate approval can take up to 3 months. We have experienced significant delays in the past due to changes in EQA staff and systems at YMCA Awards, so we feel this is a safe timeframe to expect these process to occur.

The 3 months generally includes time for marking (15 working days), time for IQA (15 working days), 1 month for claiming (we put a claim in once a month so could be sooner), 21 days for EQA, and 10 for certificate printing.

Martin can provide confirmation on letter-headed paper if students do need proof of completion in the meantime.

Internal Quality Assurance

COHORTS

For Pilates and Sports Massage cohorts, 40% of learner portfolios must be sampled and 40% of assessments (varied) sampled in each of those portfolios. IQA to take random sample from learner cohort list.

INDIVIDUAL LEARNERS

Across all other qualifications, 1 in 3 learner portfolios to be sampled for IQA with 40% of assessments (varied) sampled in each portfolio. Lead IQA to randomly select portfolios to be sampled and place in IQA's dropbox folder.

IQA to fully complete IQA sampling plan and report document and save alongside the learners portfolio. Once sampled and any immediate actions have been actioned, learners folder to be saved in the "To Claim" folder.