Want to be a Hair and Beauty Assessor?

Picture this…..you have decided that you definitely want to be an assessor in the Hair and Beauty industry!  Great decision! As discussed before, in my opinion, this is the best place to start, particularly if you are looking at getting into colleges or teaching NVQ’s etc.  

You do your research and find a reputable company with great reviews (such as ELN!), you then look at the assessing qualification all ready to register and arrrrgh…..there are a number of different types of assessor qualifications! Which one do you choose? What are the differences? Does it even make a difference? Does your industry have a preference? Not to mention they all have different completion times and of course ….cost!

No fear! I will break them down here, to enable you to make an informed choice!

The Qualifications…

Certificate in Assessing Vocational Achievement

I am starting with this one as it is made up of all the required components for the full certificate, the other qualifications are awards made up of different units within this certificate.  Each one has its place depending on your requirements/aspirations, however, the one thing to note, is that if you wish to assess NVQ’s or similar you are more than likely going to require the full certificate.

The certificate is made up of 3 units, one is theory and the other two are practical units. The theory unit is a fairly straightforward number of written assignments which is required in all of the assessing awards.

You then have two practical units, the first of which is based on workplace assessment. This unit requires you to assess within a workplace.  In a college setting, this could be the working salon within the college, if you are in a salon this could relate to your apprentices. It goes without saying that in the hair and beauty industry this is a fairly integral skill to have as most of the work is practical and workplace-based.  For this unit, your methods of assessment are things like observation and products of work.  

The second practical unit is based on classroom assessment, although it doesn’t literally mean teaching in a classroom. Instead of assessing ‘on the job’, you will be assessing theory or similar by using methods such as assignments, projects or even examination questions.  

Award in Assessing Competence in the Work Environment

As you have probably grasped from the title this is the work-based element of the assessing qualification. As a standalone award, this will enable you to assess in the workplace, you will therefore be doing the theory unit and the work-based practical unit mentioned above. This is a great idea if maybe you work in a salon and want to help assess apprentices, but have no desire to teach or assess theory elements.  

Award in Assessing Vocationally Related Achievement

I am sure you have got the idea now! This is for those of you who wish to just assess theory-based work but not the practical elements.  In my opinion, this is probably not much of an option for the hair and beauty industry … unless maybe you are teaching an online course of theory work? Or if you want to understand more about assessing for CPD or an IQA qualification? I would love your opinions on this! Please email us at info@eln.co.uk if you can give me any other suggestions! Again this consists of the theory unit and then the classroom-based practical unit mentioned earlier.

Award in Understanding the Principles and Practices of Assessment

This is merely the theory element of assessing and generally, will not enable you to be a practising Hair and Beauty assessor, however, it is a fantastic introduction to assessing and if you are not sure whether or not you wish to be a Hair and Beauty assessor, it is a great place to learn about assessing and the underpinning knowledge you will need. It is also great as CPD and has proven extremely popular during lockdown periods as it is easily completed online when industries such as hair and beauty have not been able to practice. Again it could be that you wish to be an IQA but would like to have an understanding of assessing too to promote best practice. This unit can also be added to the Award in Education and Training, so if you are planning on doing both teachings and assessing it is a good option to combine the theory and streamline the process.

It is also worth bearing in mind that you can ‘add on’ to these courses in order to upgrade them, so for instance, once you have the theory unit you will not have to redo that if you decide to upgrade to the full certificate, this enables you to ‘dip your toe in the water‘ at less cost if you are a little unsure of what your exact future plans are.

Practical Criteria Requirements…

What does the practical element require in terms of criteria? Basically, for either (or both) of the practical units, you will be required to assess 2 learners and each of these learners must do a minimum of 2 assessments each using the required methods of assessment. The methods of assessment are different for each of the units. Everything else is covered in the way your record your assessments.

Online assessing of practical units…

Now there’s a question! How do we do this?! It is all about EVIDENCE! Here at ELN, we have a great Learner Management System that enables you to upload everything you need to, to prove your assessments took place. Good administration skills are paramount as an assessor, and this begins with your qualification admin! Good plans, plenty of evidence and great feedback are what we need to see.  In terms of our observation of your assessments you will be required to video the feedback you give to your learners and upload this to the system, we will then do an observation of this feedback video. Alternatively, if you are working with another qualified Hair and Beauty assessor they may be able to do a ‘real-time' observation for you instead of you doing the video. 

All evidence is uploaded to the system for us to grade, so this enables the whole process to be done remotely…. Isn’t technology fabulous! 

Cordelia Castle - ELN Tutor, June 2021