Have you just become a TQUK centre? Do you need help creating Centre Devised Assessments? Well you’ve come to the right place!

We get all sorts of questions about Centre Devised Assessments: what they are, how they should be created and what the approval process looks like. So we wrote this blog to help all of our centres learn more about Centre Devised Assessments and how they can satisfy our qualification requirements. Enjoy!

What is Centre Devised Assessment?

Centre Devised Assessments are assessments designed by a centre that they are intending to use to assess their learners who are undertaking a TQUK qualification. These must be created in line with the learning outcomes and assessment criteria in the TQUK qualification specification. Centres can find these qualification specifications in Verve in the ‘Documents’ section by searching in the ‘Qualification Documents’ list.

During qualification approval, you may be required to submit devised assessments to the Qualifications team for review. Whether or not a devised assessment is requested, you may ask that it is reviewed by our Qualifications team to further assure yourselves the assessment meets the requirements of the qualification.

Exceptions to Centre Devised Assessments

There are a few qualifications we offer that require externally set and marked exams which we provide to our centres. These exams cannot be replaced by Centre Devised Assessments. These qualifications include:

  • TQUK Level 2 Award in Personal Licence Holders (RQF)
  • TQUK Level 2 Award in Food Safety in Catering (RQF)
  • TQUK Level 2 Award in Food Safety in Manufacturing (RQF)
  • TQUK Level 2 Award in Health and Safety in the Workplace (RQF)
  • TQUK Level 2 Diploma for Hair Professionals (Hairdressing) (RQF)
  • TQUK Level 2 Diploma for Hair Professionals (Barbering) (RQF)

We also provide optional assessment materials for a number of our qualifications which our centres can choose to purchase. These qualifications include:

  • TQUK Level 2 Award in Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation and Automated External Defibrillation (RQF)
  • TQUK Level 3 Award in Emergency First Aid At Work (RQF)
  • TQUK Level 3 Award in First Aid At Work (RQF)
  • TQUK Level 3 Award in Paediatric First Aid (RQF)
  • TQUK Level 1 Award in Principles of Fire Safety Awareness (RQF)
  • TQUK Level 2 Award in Fire Safety Principles (RQF)

How Do I Create a Centre Devised Assessment?

A Centre Devised Assessment should be created to satisfy every assessment criteria in the qualification specification.

Each criteria will start with a command verb. There are a large range of command verbs that we use in our criteria which may include:

  • Analyse
  • Explain
  • Demonstrate
  • Identify
  • Understand

So, for example, the command verbs for the learning outcomes and assessment criteria for a portion of Unit 1 of the TQUK Level 3 Award in First Aid at Work (RQF) are underlined in red:

These command verbs outline what the learner must be able to do in order to satisfy that assessment criterion and, by extension, pass our qualification.

These command verbs also suggest what kind of evidence must be gathered in order to achieve those criteria which will indicate what assessment activities can be used to collect this evidence.

As we’ve mentioned in a previous blog on performance evidence, generally you can find out what evidence an assessment criterion requires by looking at the command verb in the learning outcome. Generally, learning outcomes with the command verb ‘understand’ will test a learner’s knowledge and will require knowledge evidence. Learning outcomes with the command verb ‘be able to’ or ‘demonstrate’ will test a learner’s ability and will require performance evidence.

Using the example above, as the learning outcomes require the learner to ‘understand the role and responsibilities of a first aider’ and ‘be able to assess an incident’, both knowledge evidence and performance evidence should be collected. So the Centre Devised Assessment used to collect this evidence could include questions and answers and an observation.

As with every rule, there are exceptions. It is always best practice to look at the command verb used in the individual assessment criterion to see what specifically needs to be assessed from the learner and how. In this case, assessment criteria 1.1-1.3 use the command verb ‘identify’ which tests a learner’s knowledge, confirming that knowledge evidence will need to be collected. Assessment criteria 2.1-2.3 use the command verbs ‘conduct’ and ‘summon’, testing the learner’s abilities and confirming that performance evidence will need to be collected. An assessor’s own judgement will be needed in situations like this, but if you’re unsure of the assessment activities required by certain assessment criteria, then please contact the Qualifications Team at 03333 583344 or email qualifications@tquk.org.

If a learning outcome or criteria requires performance evidence, a range of activities can be used to collect this evidence. This can include an observation, a work product or a witness testimony and depends on what the assessment criterion asks for. You can read our performance evidence blog to learn more about what assessment activities should be used for different criteria. If a centre carries out an observation as their assessment activity, then they should complete an observation report confirming and detailing that they’ve observed the learner meeting the requirements of the assessment criteria.

Check out our blog on knowledge evidence and performance evidence if you’d like to learn more about when you should collect each form of evidence and what assessment activities can be used.

Mandatory Units and Optional Units

Under the ‘Structure’ section of our qualification specification, we will specify whether a qualification contains only mandatory units or both mandatory and optional units. For qualifications that only contain mandatory units, it is important that the Centre Devised Assessment covers all of the assessment criteria under every unit.

For qualifications that have both mandatory and optional units, centres should create an assessment that covers all of the mandatory units and can pick which optional units to create an assessment for as long as the minimum required credits have been met for those optional units. This information can also be found under the ‘Structure’ section. This requirement demonstrates that if a learner undertakes their CDA, then they will have met all of the necessary criteria and will have the opportunity to complete the qualification.

So, let’s take the TQUK Level 4 Award in Learning and Development (RQF) as an example:

The qualification states that ‘learners must achieve at least 12 credits: six credits from the mandatory unit and at least six credits from the optional group’.

This means that a centre must create a Centre Devised Assessment for the mandatory unit and must pick at least one optional unit which contains a minimum of six credits to create an assessment for as well.

Let’s look at the optional units below:

If a centre picks the second optional unit ‘Identify the learning needs of organisations’ to create an assessment for, then they should satisfy all of the assessment criteria under that unit within their assessment. This is because a Centre Devised Assessment must be created on a unit basis and not an individual assessment criterion basis. A centre could not create an assessment that would satisfy a few assessment criteria from the second optional unit and a few assessment criteria from another optional unit to satisfy the minimum six credit requirement.

When our centres send us their Centre Devised Assessment, they must also indicate how the assessment has satisfied all of the necessary assessment criteria, which is called assessment mapping. So, if they used questions and answers in their Centre Devised Assessment, then they could write the assessment criterion number that has been covered next to the question number such as Q1 (1.1), Q2 (1.2), Q3 (1.3) and so on. This demonstrates to our Qualification Team that all of the units and criteria have been satisfied.

We hope this helped you make more sense of how to create Centre Devised Assessments for your learners! If you have any questions about CDAs or would like guidance on creating your own CDA then please feel free to contact the Qualification Team at qualifications@tquk.org or by calling them at 03333 583344.

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