The Critical Role of the IQA in Non-Accredited Training

The Unsung Hero: The Critical Role of the IQA in Non-Accredited Training

In the Further Education and Skills sector, the Internal Quality Assurer (IQA) is often associated primarily with accredited programmes, meticulously ensuring assessment standards are met for awarding bodies. However, their role extends far beyond traditional qualifications. For providers delivering vital non-accredited training, such as community learning courses, bespoke employer programmes, or provision managed under frameworks like RARPA (Recognising and Recording Progress and Achievement), the IQA is arguably an even more critical figure.

Why is an IQA Essential for Non-Accredited Training?

When there's no external awarding body to set and police standards, the responsibility for maintaining quality falls squarely on the provider. The IQA steps into this void, ensuring that the training delivered is effective, learner-centred, and meets internal (and often external, like Ofsted EIF) quality benchmarks.

Their vital contributions include:

1. Ensuring Consistency and Fairness: Without an external arbiter, an IQA guarantees that learners on the same programme, taught by different tutors, receive comparable quality of teaching, assessment, and feedback. This is fundamental to a fair and equitable learning experience.
2. Upholding Internal Standards: IQAs define, document, and monitor the provider's own quality standards for non-accredited provision. This includes expectations around planning, delivery, assessment, and learner progress tracking (especially crucial for RARPA-based programmes).
3. Driving Continuous Improvement: By identifying strengths and areas for development in teaching, learning, and assessment practices, IQAs provide invaluable insights that fuel the provider's Quality Improvement Plan (QIP).
4. Meeting Regulatory Expectations: Ofsted's Education Inspection Framework (EIF) judges the quality of education across all provision. A strong IQA system for non-accredited training provides robust evidence of self-assurance, effective monitoring, and impact on learners.
5. Supporting Staff Development: IQAs act as mentors and coaches, providing constructive feedback to tutors, identifying training needs, and fostering a culture of reflective practice and professional growth.
6. Validating Learner Progress and Achievement: Particularly with RARPA, the IQA ensures that the recognition and recording of progress is accurate, evidence-based, and truly reflects the learning journey and outcomes achieved by students.

Key Responsibilities of an IQA in Non-Accredited Training

While the specific duties may vary, the core functions of an IQA in a non-accredited context typically include:

• Curriculum and Assessment Design Vetting: Reviewing and approving scheme of work, lesson plans, learning resources, and assessment materials (e.g., diagnostic tools, activity records, feedback forms) to ensure they are fit for purpose, align with learning outcomes, and are accessible.
• Standardisation Activities: Organising and facilitating regular standardisation meetings (as discussed in our previous blog) for tutors to ensure consistent application of assessment criteria, feedback practices, and RARPA processes.
• Sampling Learner Work and Records: Reviewing a sample of anonymised learner work, progress reviews, RARPA records, and feedback to verify the accuracy of judgements and the quality of support.
• Observing Teaching and Assessment: Conducting learning walks, classroom observations, or observation of assessment practices to provide developmental feedback to tutors.
• Supporting Tutor Development: Identifying areas for tutor training, coaching, and mentoring to enhance their skills in planning, delivery, and assessment within the non-accredited framework.
• Maintaining Quality Documentation: Ensuring all records related to quality assurance, such as observation reports, standardisation minutes, and action plans, are accurate and up-to-date.
• Contributing to Self-Assessment: Providing critical evaluation and evidence for the provider's Self-Assessment Report (SAR) regarding the quality and impact of non-accredited provision.
• Ensuring Compliance (Internal and External): Verifying adherence to internal quality policies and practices, as well as relevant external regulatory requirements (e.g., safeguarding, equality and diversity).

Leveraging QualityHero to Empower the Non-Accredited IQA

QualityHero is perfectly equipped to support IQAs working with non-accredited training:

• Quality Assurance Toolkit (/areas): Create specific "Areas" within the toolkit for your non-accredited programmes. This allows IQAs to capture evidence, make judgements, and log actions related to the quality of teaching, learning, and assessment against internal standards or RARPA stages, assigning grades like 'met' or 'needs_attention'.
• QA Forms (/qa-forms): IQAs can design and deploy custom forms for peer observations, internal reviews of lesson plans, or audits of RARPA documentation. Responses are central and easily reviewable in QA Forms Responses (/qa-forms/responses).
• Evidence Library (/evidence): A central repository for IQAs to store and categorise all relevant documentation—schemes of work, exemplars of learner progress, observation feedback, standardisation meeting minutes, and tutor development records.
• QIP (/qip): Any improvement actions identified by the IQA during their quality assurance work can be directly fed into the provider's Quality Improvement Plan, assigned to specific owners, and tracked for progress.
• Policies (/policies): IQAs can ensure that all internal policies related to non-accredited programme delivery, assessment, and RARPA are adopted, up-to-date, and accessible to all staff.

The Internal Quality Assurer is the cornerstone of quality and consistency for non-accredited training. By empowering them with clear responsibilities, robust processes, and effective tools like QualityHero, providers can ensure that all learners, regardless of programme type, benefit from high-quality education and achieve meaningful progress and achievement.