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January 2019 Newsletter

Here you can read full versions of articles we published in our January 2019 Newsletter

FutureQuals has taken the decision to split the Assessment Principles from their qualification-specific appendices. The generic Assessment Principles will now be on the FutureQuals’ website and each qualification with a specific Assessment Principle appendix will appear solely in the relevant qualification specification. This is to help with manageability and the ease of use for centres. View the Assessment Principles here.

As a result of consultation with an employer group and DTAG, FutureQuals have made some changes to the Assessment Principles Appendix for the Level 4 Diploma in Emergency Response Ambulance Driving Instruction and the Level 3 Award in Patient Care Services: Ambulance Driving. Further details of these changes will be communicated to all centres offering these qualifications shortly.

The Product Development team have been busy over the last few months reviewing all the qualifications in the FutureQuals portfolio to check that they are still fit-for-purpose and valid. This has been a  big job, considering we have 136 live qualifications on the Ofqual register, as well as qualifications on the Qualification Wales register, the CCEA Regulation register in Northern Ireland and Scottish Qualification Authority register!

As a result of this review a number of qualifications are under consideration for withdrawal. These qualifications have had very low numbers of learners registered on them for the last two years. The Product Development team will be contacting centres in the coming weeks to inform them of the qualifications that are due to be withdrawn and will close for new registrations in QMIS.

FutureQuals are pleased to confirm that both the Level 4 Associate Ambulance Practitioner (L4DAAP) and the Level 3 Certificate in Emergency Response Ambulance Driving (L3CERAD) have been through the designation approval process and are now fully designated for funding in Wales. FutureQuals are currently working with the Welsh Ambulance Service, Qualification Wales, the Welsh Government, Skills for Health and providers to develop an apprenticeship framework that combines both the driving and clinical elements of the ambulance practitioner role into one apprenticeship framework. It is anticipated that this new framework will be available to Welsh learners later this year.

After the successful launch of the new Evidence Logs for use in our L3AEFAW and L3AFAW qualifications, we have been gathering feedback from centres and, as a result, have made some minor changes to the logbook. For example, following feedback we have added in fields for Date of Birth and Gender onto the first page of the Evidence Log to help centres with the capture of accurate learner data. We have also split the L3AEFAW and L3AFAW logbooks so that they are unique to each qualification (the combine logbook is still available to use as well if centres choose to), this is to help with manageability. The feedback from centres has also included comments regarding the supplementary guidance documents which have been taken on board, referenced in the version control table which can be found at the beginning of the document and is ready to view on the website or from SharePoint.

The three Evidence Logs are now available in the CentreHub365 SharePoint site. Also, a new ‘Communications for centres’ folder has been created so any emails, letters or notices that the FutureQuals Product Development team have sent out regarding these qualifications will be stored for centres to access.

Please ensure you refresh your web browser by pressing F5 as older versions may have been stored.

Finally, a reminder that if centres want to use their own evidence logbooks then they must submit an approval form and all current first aid documents they use to FutureQuals Quality team for approval.

We have listened to feedback and, as a result, FutureQuals are pleased to announce that we have made some changes to simplify the process centres complete in the XAMS platform for Speaking, Listening and Communication.

We have redeveloped and simplified the SLC interface that centre’s use when assigning a learner’s achievement outcome for the Speaking, Listening and Communication component for Functional Skills Qualifications in English at Level 1 and 2.

Centres will now only have to input data into one screen in the XMAS platform, which records the outcome of the learner’s achievement of the SLC assessment.

Centres will still need to complete records of the assessment and to support centres with this, we have created a new Record of Learner Achievement Form. This form allows assessors to easily capture individual learner outcomes against each of the skill standards. Centres can access the Record of Learner Achievement Forms for Level 1 and Level 2 on the FutureQuals website.

The individual Record of Learner Achievement Forms, along with any IQA reports are uploaded to the centre’s CentreHub365 Functional Skills folder for moderation by FutureQuals. Results and certificates are accessed and issued through QMIS as usual. Guidance documents are available to support centres through the transition to the SharePoint CentreHub365 site.

The Functional Skills qualification specification for English, the Functional Skills Operational Handbook, SLC Guidance and XAMS User Guide have all been updated and the new editions can now be found on the Functional Skills pages of the FutureQuals website. These changes are live for centres from 14 January 2019.

If you require further information, access to the SharePoint guidance document, questions regarding the changes or need help accessing your CentreHub365 site, then please contact our Customer Support team on 01530 836662.

The L4DAAP specification has recently been amended following a query from a centre. All the GL (Guided Learning) figures have been updated to reflect the GL total rather than the TQT (Total Qualification Time) total. The overall GL figures add up to 1240 hours, which includes the 750 practice hours.

You should press F5 to refresh your internet browser history to get the up-to-date version of the specification to display.

Over the last 6 months, we have been working hard with the new SharePoint Document Repository which will replace Huddle, this is a big milestone as we develop FutureQuals technology and implement new platforms and upgrades to our systems.

We are currently in the process of migrating users from Huddle to SharePoint which went live last week, throughout January and February you will be migrated to SharePoint, as part of this process your access to Huddle will be switched off in which you will then go live on SharePoint.

Please look out for an email from me Nathan McKay (Business Services Manager or our Customer Support Team) advising you that you have been migrated with instructions on next steps.

I have been working diligently to ensure a smooth transition from one system to another, we don’t expect this to impact you greatly as the new site should be easier to use.

The platform is using Office365 which makes it easier for users to log in as you can use your own Office365 login or Microsoft Account, You will only need to set up a new account if you don’t have either of the Microsoft accounts.

Key Features of the new system:

  • New look and feel
  • Easy to upload documents into the repository with simple drag and drop
  • Fast search functionality
  • Email notifications on file changes
  • Seamless integration with Microsoft Office

Further details and User Guides will be provided by email over the next few weeks.

If you experience any issues or have any questions as part of this migration please contact Customer Support at CustomerSupport@futurequals.com

We are looking for your feedback as to what you would like to see included within the Centre Support page. From help using our learner registration and achievement software, to video tutorials, let us know what you think would be beneficial for you.

Following extensive consultation across the First Aid Forum, that FutureQuals are part of, along with several other leading First Aid awarding organisations and some representatives from the regulators, the Learning Outcomes and Assessment Criterion for Paediatric First Aid are changing.

These changes will affect both the Level 3 Award in Emergency Paediatric First Aid (L3AEPFA) and the Level 3 Award in Paediatric First Aid (L3APFA). The FutureQuals Product Development team are busy working on the revisions to the qualification specifications. We will also be implementing a new Evidence Log and MCQ assessment to take the opportunity to bring First Aid and Paediatric First Aid in line with one another and standardise practice across the suite of First Aid qualifications.

These changes will be in place for 1 April 2019. Look out for further information and updates on these changes in the new year.

We currently have a range of exciting employment opportunities available here at FutureQuals.

If you would like to work within one of the UK’s most progressive awarding organisation, please visit our employment and recruitment page on the website to find out more about the roles available and how to apply.

Thank you for reading our Newsletter. We would love to know what you think. Do you think it’s too short or too long? Do you find it informative or not informative enough? We welcome all feedback which can be forwarded to us here

There have recently been some amendments within QMIS to the registration process. Please click here to see examples.

There are two new icons that have been introduced to help centres register learners more easily.

Yellow person icon

The yellow person icon represents a duplicate or possible duplicate learner found in the system.

In this instance, the centre will need to follow one of the two options listed within the example document and should investigate if the learner is already registered within their centre or if this is a learner that will need to be registered as a new learner.

The error report icon

This icon appears when there is an error that has been identified by QMIS with some of the information that has been input.

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