Response to COVID-19
These are difficult times for employers, apprentices, and providers of apprenticeship training. As part of the cross-government efforts to respond to the impact of COVID-19, the Education and Skills Funding Agency (ESFA) is implementing new measures, for the duration of the pandemic, to make it easier for apprenticeships to continue and complete in a different way.
The Covid-19 virus presents a unique challenge to the fair and timely delivery of quality apprenticeships.
Our priority at this time is the health and wellbeing of apprentices, employers, and everyone involved in the process.
Click here to see our new remote EPA services via a pdf download.
Every effort should continue to be made to ensure that apprentices can continue with their apprenticeship, and be assessed in accordance with current EPA (End-Point Assessment) plan and EQA (External Quality Assurance) requirements if possible. Where this is not possible, providers should first consider whether it is appropriate to extend the apprenticeship in order to reschedule the EPA.
We are in continual conversation with Open Awards as the EQA for the Lean Improvement Standards and have adapted our services to meet the virtual requirements of our training providers and their apprentices. The virtual requirements includes, ACE360, Microsoft Office 365 and our website platform UCE-Point9 which will enable us to provide remote services for the End Point Assessment against the following 5 standards:
- Level 2: ST0420 – Lean Manufacturing operative
- Level 3: ST0193 – Improvement technician
- Level 4: ST0192 – Improvement practitioner
- Level 5: ST0555 – Improvement specialist
- Level 6: ST0556 – Improvement leader
