Assignment Guidance

All right. So we are going to look at some of the assignments that you will be completing as part of the AET qualification or the Award in Education and Training. Initially, the first assignment is potentially the most important one that you are going to do because this sets the foundation for understanding what is required and what you need to do to be able to complete the assignments the further you go through the qualification. So the first assignment that you complete contains five tasks. Now, the five tasks are basically questions which have been used from the assessment criteria for the units that you are going to be competing for the Award in Education and Training.

Now, the first assignment that you get, the first part of it is talking about your roles and responsibilities. Now, depending on the sector you may be working in, whether it is in an educational environment or whether it is in an organisation where you train your own staff as a trainer in, say, driving or in the construction industry, wherever it may be, there is going to be some specifics that you do which are generic and there is going to be parts to it which will be very individualised. So within that, that is what we are looking for, is that use examples from your own background, from what you are doing as a teacher or a trainer, or if you have not got a lot of experience in other areas, generalise it more and take it away from. We do get some individuals who complete this and they will be only coming from one area and it ends up making it very difficult to write about more parts because you are tied into just how you would do that one subject or one sector, so you have got to sort of generalise sometimes, but use your own experiences for examples and everything else.

So, the first assignment that you complete, so as I said, the very important one is and I would potentially say to you, generally between 75% and 85% get referred. Okay. A referral means you will get it returned to you because it is lacking of information and it may not have been answered to its full requirements, it has not met the assessment criteria, so the important part of this one is understanding what the question is asking, knowing there is a word count, trying to meet the word count as best you possibly can, using quotes and references where applicable and quoting them correctly, but also just making sure you read the question fully, so that is the second time I said that because it is the important part. So in the first assignment you get, it is broken into five parts, five tasks. The first task is a grid that you just have to tick, so this is whether you work with large groups, small groups, whether you mark assignments, give feedback, whether you do one-to-one, whether you register the individuals, your learners with the awarding bodies, whether you make appointments around learners' achievement.

Do you give positive feedback? Do you carry out IQA or Internal Quality Assurance checks? So it is just a tick box scenario for that one. The second task goes into, you've identified some of the roles and responsibilities, but now it is talking about what you need to do to explain your roles and responsibilities when you are in the classroom teaching. Yeah. So within that, this is where you are hitting the things like making sure people are aware of the ground rules, the health and safety aspects, that they are making sure the classroom is a safe environment, the layout is good to conclude inclusion, that you are an approachable trainer, that people feel comfortable because you have set a tone. That you are there to greet them, that you respond correctly to questions, you use appropriate language and communication, so these are the things which are your role and responsibility.

We have all had teachers who are, "My classroom, my rules, if you do not like it, this is how it is going to be." That is... We are avoiding that, we want to be a safe, supportive classroom where the thing, what is most important is the teaching and the education and people learning new skills and newer knowledge, so that is why our roles and responsibilities were important, but we have to show it that we are doing it as a health and safety for the people's welfare, but also for being supportive. Okay. So the question has an explain, explain means detail, examples. Yeah. Use I, for example, do this in my class, that is a nice way to start a sentence and it also encourages you to write and be flowing in the writing. And when it is an explain, please do not use bullet points, you can use sub-headings, but as long as it is written in sentences and paragraphs.

Moving on from there, you are going to start looking at the next question which is task three, so that is, what, in the classroom, what you do around summarising legislation. Okay. Legislation, regulations and codes of conduct or codes of practice. Now, the idea behind this one is, again, you are just stating what you do in line with those types of legislation, regulations and the code of practice. So this could be if it is about data protection, is it showing that you have information on your learners and you keep it for the intended purpose and once it is not required, you do not have it and you do not keep it any further.

Now, of course, that goes in line with requirements of an awarding body, requirements of insurance, whichever, whatever else comes into effect, you show that you understand under that legislation what your responsibility is and you are summarising that. If it is summarising the regulations to do with moving and handling, people say, "I do not move and handle, I work in an office." No, everyone moves and handles. So the idea is here as a moving and handler, I ensure that people do not move heavy furniture around the classroom, people do not leave bags in places where it is harder for them to pick up or, you know if we are doing the subject of moving items around as part of our job role, what you do to prevent people from injuring themselves and causing harm to themselves.

A code of practice gets into the point of saying, this is around a potential uniform that you may have to wear, the behaviour, the way you behave at work, because you are at work, so it is telling you about your code of conduct, how you should behave. It talks in there about information confidentiality, use of information technology, it will talk about specifics around boundary setting with other learners and other people on courses. And most places have that as a policy, so the idea behind task three then is, you summarise legislation that is relevant to you in the classroom and you say how you make sure this is done within the classroom.

Task four moves on to talk about equality and diversity. So the first part is just to give a definition. Now, as I have already mentioned about plagiarism, about making quotes from references, to actually make, put a definition of equality, if you put your own definition of equality in there, the likelihood is you are going to get exactly the same as how it has been written in a lot of the books that you might look it up in, okay? So there is a scope for that is okay in this situation, because if you are writing against hundreds of other people, and if everyone tries to write a different definition, you are still going to find that several of you will write the same definition so that one is not such a worry around plagiarism.

It is the next part when we talk about how you promote equality and diversity with your learners. So that will be recognising things about people's disabilities, backgrounds, cultural needs, dietary needs, health needs, that you are supportive within recognising that people may have to leave early because they have additional needs outside of the classroom. So, we are just looking at about how people are being fairly treated in a classroom, so that's what task four covers, a definition and then some information on how you promote that.

Now, task five is generally the one where people fall down in the first assignment they complete. Now, the... When you look in some of the books, it does give you an answer to some of the points that is raised and what we are looking at is recognising individual learner needs. Now, the individual learner needs can be a variety and wide range of subjects that can be from financial aspects, from child care, from health conditions, from all different areas, but we want to see in there also just that you are recognising that learning needs are also about the educational learning needs, such as dyslexia, dyscalculia, people may have a hearing or visual impairment, which could affect how they may learn in the classroom because of position in the room, if we do not have a hearing loop, people may have health needs where they might have to have regular breaks to have food or to go and do testing. There is lots of things that an individual learning need would encompass within the classroom, so it is you identify that. And it says, "Give full paragraphs". So that doesn't mean just two words is enough, it is not. It is not a full paragraph and, again, it says, "Explain". Explain needs depth of answer.

So the idea behind this video is to say the first assignment is the important one because it sets the foundation for understanding the expectations for the rest of the questions you are doing. When it comes to marking, you will be given feedback on per question, if it is passed, we say the ideal criteria has been met, if there needs to be information on what you need to do to help complete, we will give that information, and then you... All you need to do is go back, review, resubmit. Check your word count before you submit. If there is plagiarised information in there, it could be a referral straight away, so please take your time, read the questions properly, full answers and then submit and wait for feedback before you complete another assignment.