We all know that regular progress reviews are vital for checking apprentices are on track with their learning and working successfully towards completion. However, great progress reviews are much more than a check-in and chase-up…
For apprentices, they can act as a fantastic motivational tool, allowing individuals to take stock of what they’ve achieved, build confidence in their ability and allow your tutors to stretch and challenge their learners – to aim for a higher grade at end-point assessment.
Progress reviews are also a great way to engage the employer with off-the-job-learning. Help them to see how the training relates to on-the-job work, solidify their commitment to the apprenticeship programme and encourage them to offer support and guidance that will give each apprentice the best chance of completion and improve their outcomes.
But the most important function of a progress review is to determine if the training, support, development and assessment being delivered is adding value to the learner and their role in employment. Spotting potential problems early is one of the many keys to success.
So how do you engage the apprentice in progress reviews?
Understandably, many workplace trainers/assessors aim to give their learners a consistent individual progress review experience. They have a format they work through and conduct the one-to-one sessions in a friendly, supportive and business-like manner.
Unfortunately, too many progress reviews are about history, looking back at performance data to hold learners to account, or to congratulate learners on their achievements rather than inspiring, or looking ahead to the obstacles they may encounter next and the strategies they’ll need to develop to successfully overcome them.
Implementing a more forward-thinking progress review (that is much more than a list of ‘things to do’), will support engagement, build relationships and make you more likely to get to the bottom of any underlying issues, rather than just talking about symptoms, such as improving attendance or meeting deadlines.
10 top progress tips
To consistently deliver great progress reviews that are adding value to the apprenticeship experience and really supporting apprentices to achieve, is not easy and goes further than a tutor’s rapport with a learner. It takes a provider-led approach to really deliver results.
Below we’ve listed our 10 top tips for monitoring and progress, to help you think through planning, the relationship to end-point assessment, stretching and challenging through grading, and more. The list is taken from one of the slides of our next Conducting Progress Reviews and Target Setting Masterclass, where practitioners come away with practical insights they can implement in their business to improve their progress review process.
- Know the required KSBs and look for ways to group them holistically for on-programme assessment, perhaps into learning targets or learning objectives.
- Identify how to frame the KSB as questions to be answered by apprentice activity – make all of the KSBs come to life in the workplace. Sometimes the more recent addition of ‘Duties’ into apprenticeship standards can help to achieve this aim.
- Identify the end-point assessment requirements and use them to introduce progress-led assessment as the programme moves forwards.
- Use grading judiciously to encourage progress and achievement, this can reward achievement and provide a baseline for mapping potential problems.
- Use a variety of assessments to triangulate achievement of any element
- Look for ways to grade assessments as a tool to demonstrate progress and achievement for external stakeholders
- Make sure the ILP is a live and regularly updated document
- Look for ways to quantify evidence in the absence of a qualification
- Use any on-programme guidance provided by end-point assessment organisations that you work with. This might include grading descriptors for individual KSBs
- Use the progress records as your key guide with the employer when agreeing that the apprentice is gateway-ready
Conducting progress reviews and target setting Masterclass
Join Chris Cherry for a Masterclass in conducting progress reviews and setting targets. This interactive Masterclass is a great way to work with industry experts and other providers to discuss progress reviews, share best practice and take away key actions to improve your progress and monitoring.
The Masterclass will help you:
- Build in the right progress review points into your curriculum
- Plan for the review – online and face-to-face
- Build rapport and engagement with apprentices early on
- Draw on a range of tools and techniques to truly measure the apprentice’s competence
- Make effective use of assessment and grading
- Set targets which motivate and stretch the apprentice’s learning
- Adapt the type of reviews and targets, as the apprentice progresses to EPA
For further information and to book, visit Conducting progress reviews and target setting masterclass.