I was at a meeting last week discussing the new vocational Child Care awards. Over coffee, one of the participants at the meeting came up to me and started to tell me how difficult and time-consuming she had found her level 3 award in childcare. This person works full-time in a day care setting. I asked her what had been so difficult and she told me it was all the essays she had had to do for the knowledge evidence. We discussed this some more. It transpired that she had been asked to do a written answer against each and every piece of knowledge evidence. Her award was done through a local college where at the beginning of the course they handed out all the assignment sheets.
Of couse this goes directly against good assessment practice - we should always be looking for evidence of knowledge in actual work practice and we can "pad this out" with verbal questionning and professional discussion. There is of course a value to written questions, particularly where the learner has to demonstrate knowledge of policies, procedures and legal requirements.
Why do so many centres still insisit on workbooks/assignments for every piece of kowledge evidence? Competent and confident assessors would balk at this. I also question why EV's aren't picking up on it - I come across so many centres where this is regular practice. Of course one of the issues is funding - centres become results and time-frame focussed - which hardly sits comfortably along the concept of individual assessment plans and holistic assessment!
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