An assessor is someone who carries out assessments of learners and measures their efforts against a standardised criteria. Your work is essential to learners' development and it may enable you to make a real impact in your sector.
To become an assessor, you will likely need a qualification proving you have the competencies to carry out assessments. Here are a few reasons why you should consider getting one!
Professional development
You may be a teacher, be a trainer or just have an interest in education. Becoming a certified assessor will build on your skills and knowledge of how students best learn and how their academic success can be measured. This combination of education and assessment experience will see your career go in new directions, either by you landing a more senior position at your current place of employment or by you assessing at a new organisation.
Assessment is a good route for people who have particular vocational skills and have experience training people in these. For example, if you are a hairstylist, you can become someone who assesses people gaining hairstyling qualifications.
Flexibility
Being an assessor takes different forms. Once you are a qualified assessor, you have a choice of whether to work full-time or part-time in the role. Some assessors work for particular organisations as a staff member whereas others work on a freelance basis.
Gain knowledge
To be an assessor, you must have knowledge in both the study or training area that you are grading and also the legal contexts around this.
You will know how to plan assessments and how to execute them effectively, and must be able to consider how an assessment can be adapted for individuals’ needs such as disability requirements.
You must have enough knowledge of the area you are assessing to be confident that the assessment method is an accurate way of measuring what a student should know.
Meet many people
As an assessor, you will meet all sorts of people across your organisation. You will be involved with the trainees or students taking assessments as well as work with the departments who are implementing tests.
When you work at an assessment organisation, you will meet with educational and school leaders to ensure different test centres are teaching to the same standards.
Choice of workplaces
Assessors can work at education awarding bodies. These organisations write exams and course frameworks to be followed by many schools who send the test papers externally (to you) to be marked.
Alternatively, you can become an assessment expert at your current workplace. If you work at a school where students complete internal exams, you can be in charge of standardising and writing papers and ensuring they are all marked fairly.
Other types of workplaces such as offices require assessors to help training be implemented properly and to ensure that trainees are being tested for it correctly.
Be part of something important
When you are an assessor, you play an essential role in keeping education fair, standardised and accessible. Without qualified and passionate assessors, grading becomes inconsistent and consequently the education system is not fair for all.
Assessors are also key in seeing where education and training can be improved. When marking tests, you will be the one to see the areas or question types in which students struggle and you can be in the forefront of finding solutions.
Become a qualified assessor by completing the Ofqual-accredited Level 3 Award in Understanding Principles and Practices of Assessment at Notting Hill College.
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