Initial Assessment

PROSTART is committed to maintaining an initial assessment system that is rigourous and consistent to ensure fair assessment and identify support needs for effective learner progression.

It is Prostarts Policy to carry out an Initial Assessment on All Learners

What do we mean by initial assessment?

We define initial assessment as:

Building up a clear, accurate and relevant picture of an individual’s attainment and potential to use as a basis for negotiating a programme of learning and assessment opportunities.

Initial Assessment is concerned with both:

• What learners have already achieved – their attainment
• What they should be able to achieve in the future – their potential

What can we learn from initial assessment?

Initial assessment is the first step in the processes of:

• Negotiating learning. The key skill improving own learning and performance is founded on the process of negotiated learning, where trainer and learner meet to identify needs and to plan and agree what they hope to achieve
• Continuous assessment. Equally important is the process of reviewing progress at regular intervals, and giving and receiving constructive feedback – again, central to improving own learning and performance
• Developing a relationship. Initial assessment should help trainer and learner to get to know each other and to begin to build trust and cooperation.

Initial Assessment can therefore help us to identify:

• The learner’s learning needs – what they need to learn – which aspects they need to improve
• Their support needs – how will they best learn. This involves both ways in which the learner is likely to learn most happily and

INITIAL ASSESSMENT TOOLKIT –
the different ways we gather information for Initial Assessment

Documentary information including Certificates and Personal Learning Record – qualifications, records of achievement, their personal learning record, any reports or information about any previous access arrangements, references  or evidence that provides useful information about the skills and abilities that the individual brings to his or her programme (Recognition of Prior Learning & accreditation)

Self-Assessment – the individual’s own views should be taken seriously. They are an important dimension in the overall picture, put into perspective by information from other sources.

Interviews and discussions – provide an ideal situation for interviewer and apprentice to get to know each other and a lot of information that may not be obvious from other sources can be recognised.

Observation – direct evidence of how the person performs either at or away from the workplace, body language, comfort zone with paperwork and tests.

Highfield Functional Skills Assessment – for learners that do not have exemptions it is also important to put the apprentice through specifically designed situations that build a valid and reliable method of testing ability, performance and learning needs and for this the assessment is used.

Adult Learning Checklist – where the individual’s rating is not at a standard that would be expected, apprentices are referred to Access to work to apply for further tests for dyslexia or dyscalculia to ensure extra support needs can be addressed.

Skills Scan – Review of prior knowledge/ achievement and certification to ensure that learning isn’t duplicated and is suitably challenging. The programme of learning and funding is adjusted based on prior knowledge, skills and behaviours.

The results of the initial assessment is discussed with the apprentice/ apprentice and documented on the Apprentices & learners Commitment Statement including Scheme of work and acted on!

This policy is reviewed annually

Version 16 Jan 24