Quality Assurance Policy

Policy Statement

It is Prostart’s intention to become recognised as a Centre of Excellence.

Management, staff & partners at Prostart aim to provide a high standard of service to all Apprenticeship & Traineeship learners, to give them the opportunity to develop to their full potential, supporting them in their employment, learning and everyday life.

At Prostart we plan learning and teaching with a view to enabling each learner to achieve their full potential and seek the highest level of personal achievement. To ensure that this happens, we regularly monitor and evaluate the impact of our provision, so that we are in a position to make a judgment about how effective we are in securing the best outcomes for learners.

Monitoring is the means by which we gather information systematically across a range of activities.

Evaluation is the process of making judgments about the effectiveness of the actions we have taken, based on their impact on the quality of the learning.

The outcomes of monitoring and evaluation are recorded in the self-assessment report which is written and agreed with support from staff and feedback from learners and employers. In this way monitoring and evaluation gives us the information with which we can identify future improvement priorities and provide the baseline against which we can measure the impact of further actions taken.

Aims

Through effective monitoring and evaluation of teaching and learning we seek to:

• establish how well we are performing;

• identify our strengths and weaknesses

• identify the professional development needs (CPD) for all staff;

• celebrate our strengths;

• ensure that our future actions are targeted to address any weaknesses;

• inform development planning;

• allocate resources in the most effective way.

Roles and Responsibilities

It is the responsibility of the Senior Leadership Team (SLT) to ensure that monitoring and evaluation processes are rigorous and thorough and embedded in the working practices of Prostart

The SLT ensure that all members of staff understand the importance of participating in realistic, open and honest monitoring and evaluation as a key element of the process to identify areas to improve.

The QA Auditor & Data Analyst will ensure that there is a published calendar of monitoring and evaluation activities which clearly states the purpose of the monitoring activity, who will be involved and how findings will be evaluated and reported back. All staff are aware of their roles in these activities and should be prepared to play an active part in reflective practice.

Staff with leadership responsibility will have specific areas of performance where they will gather data in a structured way, evaluate effectiveness and make suggestions for actions to secure improvement. Their role descriptions clearly identify their areas of responsibility and they should be given time and authority to carry out these activities within the planned calendar of activities. The SLT have a good understanding of the Self-assessment Report and ensure that it links directly to improvement priorities.

The QA Auditor and Data Analyst will monitor performance data throughout the year and disseminate this to all staff.

Framework for monitoring and evaluation

• Working to a set of agreed policy commitments which are underpinned by simple written procedures describing the key learning and development processes that we need to get right.  These include the initial meeting with the learner, interview, induction, initial assessment including review of prior learning, individual development planning, training and assessment practices, progress review and Internal Verification and Standardisation meetings. 
• Carrying out self-assessment annually involving staff, subcontractors (where applicable), employers, Apprentices and Traineeship learners to identify our strengths and areas for improvement.
• Using the resulting quality improvement plan to improve our service and obtain at least a grade 2 at inspection
• Meeting the Awarding organisation requirements and maintaining approved status and direct claims for all qualifications
• Meeting the requirements of End Point Assessment organisations
• Maintaining the Matrix Quality Standard for Information Advice and Guidance
• Using the quality cycle to ensure we meet all Legislative and Funding requirements
• Using the results from our annual cycle of staff observations to identify areas for improvement, good practice and inform training requirements.
• Collection and use of user voice feedback and analysis of compliments and complaints
• Production and analysis of reports to identify areas for improvement. We examine the trends emerging from the data.  We ensure that at any variations between the progress of Apprentices and Traineeship learners from different ethnic or cultural backgrounds is addressed. Similarly, we monitor the progress of Apprentices and Traineeship learners by gender and with disabilities to ensure parity of outcome.
• Working in partnership with external organisations to widen participation
• Maintaining staff continued professional development (CPD) through the staff training and development policy, annual training schedule, memberships and subscriptions 
• Quality monitoring of subcontracted provision
• Embedded audits
• Staff appraisal and development. Wherever feasible, we ensure that identified training and development are carried out.

Reviewed Date: September 23